Monday, November 29, 2004
A Fifth Math?
By all accounts Adi Sankara's time was some where around 8th to 9th century AD. And of the four Maths that he established Kanchi is not one of them. Either the Mutt is less than 1100 years old or if it is 482 B.C. as is claimed in the news then it must not have been established by Adi Sankaracharya.
It is generally accepted as tradition that Adi Sankaracharya, the famous Advaita philosopher, founded four maths (monasteries) at Sringeri, Puri, Dwaraka and Badrinath; that he meditated under the Badri tree at Jyotir-pitha, and finally passed away near Kedarnath. None of the four recognized mathas claims jurisdiction over the other three.
However, the Kanchi math claims that Sankaracharya established a fifth math in Kanchi, with jurisdiction over the recognized four mathas; that Sankaracharya ascended a sarvagna-pitha not in Jyotispeeth, but at Kanchi, and that he passed away not in Kedarnath, but at Kanchipuram.
These and other such claims have been widely publicized by the followers of the Kanchi math with the direct participation of and encouragement from the heads of the Kanchi math, including the recently departed centenarian Sri Chandrasekharendra Saraswati and his successor Sri Jayendra Saraswati.
See The Real History of the Kanchi Mutt posted below.
