Śaṅkaradigvijaya: A Narrative Interpretation of Śaṅkara’s Advaita Vedānta

This chapter rereads and rethinks the Śaṅkaradigvijaya (SDV), a premodern hagiography of Śaṅkara written in the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century. The author focuses on two pivotal episodes of the SDV, the episode of Śaṅkara in the king’s body (and the debate with Maṇḍana and Ubhaya-bhāratī that precedes it), and Śaṅkara’s poignant encounter with an “untouchable” caṇḍāla on a narrow lane leading to the river Gaṅgā. Both episodes raise questions about identity and identification, embodiment and disembodiment, borders and border-crossing, knowledge of body and body of knowledge. The author reads these episodes opposite Śaṅkara’s own texts, namely the Brahmasūtra-bhāṣya and his commentaries on several Upaniṣads and the Bhagavad-Gītā, thereby creating a dialogue between two Śaṅkaras, the philosophercommentator and his namesake, the protagonist of the hagiography. The first episode, the author argues, elucidates the intriguing concept of jñāna-niṣṭhā-“steadfastness in knowledge,” or more literally “being within knowledge,” which occurs in Śaṅkara’s commentary on the Bhagavad-Gītā. The second episode, i.e., the canḍāla episode, adds a social dimension to Śaṅkara’s metaphysical notion of advaita. The author’s analysis draws on the writings of contemporary theorists Daya Krishna and Mukund Lath.