It must be admitted in all fairness that it was the British who first wrote the history of India. The Hindus probably are the only race who, despite having such intelligence, bravery and tremendous capacity for successive revivals, have showed such pathetic neglect of history.
“Why rewrite Indian History?” by V. S. Godbole
The neglect of history by the Hindus may be attributed to their sense or rather no-sense of the time as we understand today. This attitude has played havoc with the chronological order in Indian history. The dictum “Old is gold” has resulted in pushing historical personalities and facts way back in time. A classical example is the recent celebration of 2510 years of the birth of Adi Sankara by Kanchi Mutt at Kaladi on 6th May 2003. It is not our intention to challenge anyone. We are only eager to see the evidences to change the year of birth of Sankara by more than 1300 years backwards.
In his article on Sree Sankaracharya, K Kunjunni Raja, a noted historian and a Keralite has this to say:
“Debates have continued for over a century regarding Sree Sankaracharya's period, with no authentic conclusions as yet. Prof. Theele in his Outlines of the History of Ancient Religions(1877) had mentioned the period as 788-820 AD. He had surmised this from a statement inAarya Vidyaa Sudhaakaram of Yajneswara Saasthri, a work based on Sankara Mandaara Sourabham of Bhatta Neelakandhan, son of Thrivikraman and Parvathy Amba. Neelakandhan had another Kaavyam (poetic composition), Sankaraabhyudayam, in which it was mentioned that he was born in 788 AD and died on Vaisaakha Poornima day. His period is attributed with certainty to be after scholars such as Bharthruhari, Dingnaaga, Gaudapaada, Dharmakeerthi and Kumaarilabhatta. Thus 788-820 period is believable.”
This period has been accepted by Sringeri Sharada Peetham as can be seen from their web page (http://www.sringeri.org).
To our knowledge, no historian has ever claimed that Sankara was born five hundred years before Jesus. Such a claim would have to answer the following facts:
1. Prof. P. Sankaranarayanan in his article The life and work of Sri Sankara published in the web page of Kanchi Mutt writes: “Buddhism, the rebel child of the Vedic religion and philosophy, denied God and the soul, laid the axe at the very roots of Vedic thought and posed a great danger to its very survival. This onslaught was stemmed occasionally, compelling Buddhism to seek refuge in other lands. While the credit for this should go primarily to the Mimamsaka, Kumarila Bhatta, it was because of Sri Sankara's dialectical skill and irrefutable arguments that it ceased to have sway over the minds of the inheritors of Vedic religion.”
According to Pandit Nehru, the greater onslaught on Buddhism came from the Hindu Gupta kings and the religion was already weak when Sankara appeared on the scene. There are strong historical evidences to suggest that Siddhartha Gautama, known as the Buddha, was born in the sixth century BC. If we accept Kanchi Mutt's view, these two historical figures (Buddha and Sankara) were contemporaries or a few decades apart. It took many centuries and Asoka, Kanishka and others to make Buddhism a powerful religion threatening Hinduism.
The hold of Buddhism on the masses of India could be seen from the writing of celebrated Chinese pilgrim Faxian (334-420 AD). He made a journey that marked the high point of the first wave of Chinese pilgrims in India. He left China in 399 AD and returned in 414 AD. We see that even two centuries later the religion was hardly weakened as may be gleaned from the detailed historic accounts of the reign of Harshavardhana (606-647AD). The sources for such accounts are: coins and inscriptions, the reports of pilgrims, official Chinese documents and writings by well-known personalities like the Chinese traveler Huien Tsang.
Though a Hindu, King Harshavardhana maintained an impartial tolerance towards the other religions, especially Buddhism that at that time was the religion of the common masses. To honor Huien Tsang, a devout student Buddhist theology and admirer of the holy land of Buddha, Harshavardhana organized the Kanauj Assembly in 643 AD. This was a grand assembly of many rajas including King Bhaskaravarman of Kamrupa (Assam) and the Vallabhi king, Dhuvabhatti. The Assembly at Kanauj included a large congregation of Brahmans, Buddhist monks ands Jains, who were involved in religious discourses. We should not forget to mention that Huien Tsang, along with thousands of students from many countries, studied in the well-known Buddhist university of Nalanda. If so, how could the religion that Sankara opposed and helped drive out of India flourish 1150 (500 + 650 = 1150) years after his “supposed” birth?
The learned professor (Sankaranarayanan) further says, “While modern historians fix his period as 780-820 AD, the tradition determined by the pontifical succession of various Maths fix him several centuries before Christ.”
Here also there is contradiction. The present pontiff of Sringeri Mutt is 36th in the line. If Sankara established both Kanchi and Sringeri Mutts, how is it that the Kanchi Mutt's pontiff is 69th in succession?
Thus we are comfortable with the eighth century son of Aryamba and Sivaguru. We cannot imagine a Sankara who shook hands with Buddha and/or fought Buddhism in its infancy.
2. No one yet disputes about Sankara being a Namboothiri Brahmin from Kaladi in Kerala. Though it is claimed that Parasurama brought Nambuthiris to Kerala, historical evidences seem to imply that they probably migrated from Gujarat and Sindh in the 6th or 7th century AD. It was their influence which brought about Malayalam (a fairly new language) by amalgamating Tamil with Sanskrit. No scholar ever claims that Nambuthiris were in Kerala for 3000 years.
3. It was in 825 AD that the Malayalam Era called “Kollavarsham” was started by King Rajasekhara Varma of Kollam. One legend tells us that this new calendar was started to honour the great Sree Sankaracharya and refers to the popular Kali Dina Samkhya, Aachaarya Vaagabhedyaa, which translates to the number 1434160 according to “Katapayaadi.” This works out that this era started in 825 A.D. It is believed that Sankara and Rajasekhara Varma were contemporaries.
As Keralites (the senior author was born and brought up in Sankara's birthplace, Kaladi), we are proud of our fellow citizen and believe that Sankara born in any era will remain Sankara. We hope that there are strong arguments not to change Sankara's period from 788-820 AD to 407-374 BC
