A History of the Mahrattas v2.c40.10

v2.c40.10

¹ A famous Gooroo of the southern Mahratta country. [Shankarāchārya, whose birth is traditionally dated in A.D. 788, was the protagonist of the great reaction against Buddhism in the Deccan. Like Valmīkī and Vyāsa, he was not, it is alleged, a pure Brahman; but the Vedānta school and system which he founded became the exponent of orthodox Brahmanism, teaching that a Sūdra has no right to the Vedas, and is therefore incapable of effecting his own salvation. Whether Shankarāchārya contributed ideas of his own to his presentation of the old teaching, or whether he was merely a brilliant interpreter, it is certain that he possessed enormous intellectual power and audacity of speculation. In his famous commentary on the Upanishads, from which he sought to formulate a theory of the universe, he introduced the doctrine of Māya, or illusion, with the object of solving their logical antinomies and building them into a consistent system. (Macnicol, Indian Theism, 98, 199.) He is claimed as teacher by both Saivas and Vaishnavas, though he himself appears to have been a follower of Vishnu. The Smārta Brahmans of the South Deccan and Madras claim to be his descendants, and the Swāmi of Sringeri in Mysore is regarded as his modern representative. (See Sir R. G. Bhandarkar’s Vaisnavism, Saivism and Minor Religious Systems in Encyclopædia of Indo-Aryan Research (Strassburg); Monier-Williams, Brahmanism and Hinduism.)]