Welcome to the 8th issue of Vedagyan
Now we shall learn about AtharvaVeda.

Atharva Veda contains about six thousand verses. Though appears to be later in age this contains information on civilisation much older than Rig Veda. The name of this Veda is derived from Atharva Angiras a great seer.

Its 731 poems are in majority deal with herbs and their curative powers, the demons (both male and female), diseases that afflict society, sins and their atonement, pitfalls of performing rituals wrongly.

This Veda contains a number of hymns to compel

devatas who are reluctant to grant the favours to humans! This Veda recognises imps and goblins and gives very detailed descriptions of Spells! (Watch out Harry Potters!)

This Veda gave rise to Ayur Veda that is very popular today! Most of this Veda is not metred. Wonderful hymns of Varuna and Prtivi are noteworthy.

There were a number of Rishis named Angiras of them the foremost is Agni the Lord of Fire and he is known as Prathama Angiras.

A brief life history of Adi Sankara Bagavatpada.

Sri Sankara was born in a small hamlet called Kaladi in present day Kerala. This is situated on the banks of the river Poorna, and is near the famous Shiva Shrine of Vadakkunathan in Trichur. His parents were Sri Sivaguru and Aryamba of Nambudri families.

The childless couple Sri Sivaguru and Aryamba prayed to Sri Vadakkunathan for a progeny to which He assented with a condition! Lord gave them the option of having one child who would be extrodinarily brilliant and scholarly and pious but would die young, or else more children of mediocre in nature!
The couple would only have the son who is brilliant and pious.
Thus was the beginning of Shri Sankara’s life. He was none other than the avathara of Lord Shiva.
Sankara’s life is full of miracles and at the very young age he lost his father and his mother Aryamba performed his upanayana and he started learning the scriptures and other literatures. He mastered them all with astonishing alacrity.
When he was under gurukula he used to go into the village to some households and beg for alms as prescribed to be the duty of a Brahmachari. One day he went to a house of a very poor Brahmin and the lady of the house did not have anything to offer but for an amla fruit! Undaunted by the utter helplessness and abject poverty the lady brought that fruit and offered it to Sankara. Being a Gyani he understood her predicament, and then and there prayed to Goddess Mahalakshmi to give her the wealth. To every one’s surprise it rained gold! Thus he relieved her of her poverty!

In another instance he changed the course of Poorna River because his mother could not go that far to take bath. He was a renunciate even when he was young. But he wanted to take up Sanyasa Asrama in a proper manner. Suddenly one day when he was taking bath in the river a crocodile caught his leg and Sankara had no hope of survival and at the very instant he decided to take up sanyasa as it would mean taking a new birth!

He explained to his mother who was in a state of shock on seeing him caught by the creature, she readily agreed. Immediately the crocodile released Sankara. He promised his mother that at time of her death he would be by her side where ever he might be. He undertook a journey in search of a Guru.
Then he reached the Narmada valley and on the banks of the river Narmada he reached the Ashram of Govinda Bagavatpada a disciple of Gaudapada, and requested him to accept him as a student. Govinda Bagavatpada agreed and took Sankara as his disciple. On observing his progress he conferred the Paramahamsa order on Sankara.
Sankara wrote many books and commentaries. Most famous of them were Brahma Sutra Bhashya, Bhashyas of famous Upanisahads, Bhashya for Patanjali Yoga Sutra, Gita Bhashya. He also wrote many vartikas, tippanis, vrttis.
He composed many songs on the Lord and the famous ones are Baja Govindam, Nrsimha Karavalambam, and Soundarya Lahari etc. He wrote the bhashya of Vishnu Sahasranama.

He wrote famous books on contemplation and self-realisation, such as Atmabodham, Upadesa saram, and Drk Drsya vivekam, Aparoksha Anubhuti etc.

He held debates with many scholars of other faiths and won them. In Kashmir he debated with Kumarila Bhatta who deputed his disciple Mandana Misra to debate. Sankara won the debate.

Mandana Misra became his disciple called Suresvaracharya and became the head of Srngagiri mutt in Karnataka other mutts were at Puri, Dwaraka, Joshimutt, and Badrinath.

He established four principal mutts in four corners of the country and established his disciples as their heads and ordained them to uphold sanathana dharma and propagate our scriptures. He also divided the ritualistic worship of gods into major branches and established Vaishnavam, Saivam, Saktham, Kaumaram, Ganapathyam and Souram.

As promised to his mother he reached his mother at her deathbed and when she passed away, performed her final rites amid lot of protests from the locals against a Sanyasi doing these rites.

Later he went on a pilgrimage to mount Kailash and disappeared in a cave near Kedarnath. There are also other versions about his last days that say that he came down south to Kanchipuram and attained mukthi.

Within a span of thirty odd years Sankara created a revolution in our spiritual domain and left his indelible mark!

Bye now, see you all in the next issue.