11-16-2004, 07:23 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-mitradena+Nov 15 2004, 02:36 PM-->QUOTE(mitradena @ Nov 15 2004, 02:36 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin--> What do you think of the Kanchi Kamakoti History page? :-
http://www.kamakoti.org/peeth/origin.html
Do you accept that Adi Sankara was born in 509 B.C.?
They have cited many references there. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Though Vidyashankar is partisan of the Shringeri Math, I generally agree that he is right. The historical list of Acharyas given by the Kanchi Math site is not entirely fictious, some Acharyas with those names are indeed real. But most of those are drawn ad hoc from other Mathas (see Kosla's Acharya lineage) and are not given real periods of tenure. The town of Kanchi is very old but definitely not as old as 425 BC or something like that. It is known that the founder of Eastern marital arts Bodhidharma was an Acharya from Kanchi who went to China. The ambassador to the Uighur Kha'Khan's court, Indrabodhi was also an Acharya from Kanchi. But this was in the period of 400-600 AD and before Shankaracharya. The Kamakshi temple at Kanchi may have also been old but may have again preceded Shankara. The Tantric guru Shri Muladeva from Kashmir, known in Tamil as the Tirumular, the composer of the Tirumantiram, appears to have been associated with the earlier version of the temple. He first brought Shrikula tantrism to the South and introduced the first wave of Kamakshi worship.
http://www.kamakoti.org/peeth/origin.html
Do you accept that Adi Sankara was born in 509 B.C.?
They have cited many references there. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Though Vidyashankar is partisan of the Shringeri Math, I generally agree that he is right. The historical list of Acharyas given by the Kanchi Math site is not entirely fictious, some Acharyas with those names are indeed real. But most of those are drawn ad hoc from other Mathas (see Kosla's Acharya lineage) and are not given real periods of tenure. The town of Kanchi is very old but definitely not as old as 425 BC or something like that. It is known that the founder of Eastern marital arts Bodhidharma was an Acharya from Kanchi who went to China. The ambassador to the Uighur Kha'Khan's court, Indrabodhi was also an Acharya from Kanchi. But this was in the period of 400-600 AD and before Shankaracharya. The Kamakshi temple at Kanchi may have also been old but may have again preceded Shankara. The Tantric guru Shri Muladeva from Kashmir, known in Tamil as the Tirumular, the composer of the Tirumantiram, appears to have been associated with the earlier version of the temple. He first brought Shrikula tantrism to the South and introduced the first wave of Kamakshi worship.