Hastamalakacharya (

IAST The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration (IAST) is a transliteration scheme that allows the lossless romanisation of Indic scripts as employed by Sanskrit and related Indic languages. It is based on a scheme that emerged during ...

') (c. 8th century CE) was a disciple of

Adi Shankara Adi Shankara ("first Shankara," to distinguish him from other Shankaras)(8th cent. CE), also called Adi Shankaracharya ( sa, आदि शङ्कर, आदि शङ्कराचार्य, Ādi Śaṅkarācāryaḥ, lit=First Shanka ...

, the

Advaita ''Advaita Vedanta'' (; sa, अद्वैत वेदान्त, ) is a Hindu sādhanā, a path of spiritual discipline and experience, and the oldest extant tradition of the orthodox Hindu school Vedānta. The term ''Advaita'' (lit ...

philosopher A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...

. He was made the first Jagadguru (''head'') of the Dvāraka Pīṭhaṃ, the

monastery A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in communities or alone (hermits). A monastery generally includes a place reserved for prayer which ...

founded by Adi Shankara in

Dwaraka Dvaraka, Dwaraka, Dwarka may refer to: Places India * Dvārakā, ancient city in Gujarat, the capital of the Yadus in the Mahabharata :* Dvārakā–Kamboja route, an ancient trade-route and a branch of the Silk Road * Dwarka, Gujarat, also k ...

. Hastamalaka founded a matha by name Idayil Matham in Thrissur, Kerala.

Meeting Adi Shankara

The Mādhavīya Śaṃkaravijayam states that when Adi Shankara was at Kollur, he accepted invitations by brāhmaņas to have Bhikşa (''alms'' or food) at their houses. On such an occasion he visited a village called Śrīvalli (near Chitrapur, Uttara karnataka), where every house was said to emit the holy smell of the smoke of

Agnihotra Agnihotra (IAST: ''Agnihotra'', Devnagari: अग्निहोत्र) refers to the yajna of casting of ghee into the sacred fire as per strict rites, and may include twice-daily heated milk offering made by those in the Śrauta tradition. Th ...

sacrifice, to accept Bhikşa. That place was inhabited by about two thousand brāhmaņas who were learned in the

Vedas upright=1.2, The Vedas are ancient Sanskrit texts of Hinduism. Above: A page from the '' Atharvaveda''. The Vedas (, , ) are a large body of religious texts originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute the ...

and performed the Yajnas prescribed in the Vedas. There was also a

temple A temple (from the Latin ) is a building reserved for spiritual rituals and activities such as prayer and sacrifice. Religions which erect temples include Christianity (whose temples are typically called churches), Hinduism (whose temples ...

dedicated to

Shiva Shiva (; sa, शिव, lit=The Auspicious One, Śiva ), also known as Mahadeva (; ɐɦaːd̪eːʋɐ, or Hara, is one of the principal deities of Hinduism. He is the Supreme Being in Shaivism, one of the major traditions within Hindu ...

and

Parvati Parvati ( sa, पार्वती, ), Uma ( sa, उमा, ) or Gauri ( sa, गौरी, ) is the Hindu goddess of power, energy, nourishment, harmony, love, beauty, devotion, and motherhood. She is a physical representation of Mahadevi i ...

. In that village there lived a brāhmaņa, Prabhākara, who was noted for his learning. He had a son who though appearing quite handsome, behaved rather like an idiot. Though

upanayanam ''Upanayana'' ( sa, उपनयनम्, lit=initiation, translit=Upanāyanam) is a Hindu educational sacrament, one of the traditional saṃskāras or rites of passage that marked the acceptance of a student by a preceptor, such as a ''guru'' ...

was performed for him, he did not take to studying the Vedas, instead preferred to sit around doing nothing. Hearing about Adi Shankara's visit, Prabhākara approached the

Acharya In Indian religions and society, an ''acharya'' (Sanskrit: आचार्य, IAST: ; Pali: ''ācariya'') is a preceptor and expert instructor in matters such as religion, or any other subject. An acharya is a highly learned person with a tit ...

(''teacher'') with a load of fruit and prostrated before him. He also made his son prostrate before him. Prabhākara explained to Adi Shankara that his son behaved rather like an idiot and sat idly throughout the day. Then, Adi Shankara addressed that young boy and asked him who he was. The boy replied in 12 verses containing the gist of the

philosophy. Thus Adi Shankara was immensely impressed with him and accepted him as his disciple. He was named Hastāmalaka (''one with the

amalaka An amalaka ( sa, आमलक), is a segmented or notched stone disk, usually with ridges on the rim, that sits on the top of a Hindu temple's shikhara or main tower. According to one interpretation, the amalaka represents a lotus, and thus the ...

fruit in his hand'') since the knowledge of the

Self The self is an individual as the object of that individual’s own reflective consciousness. Since the ''self'' is a reference by a subject to the same subject, this reference is necessarily subjective. The sense of having a self—or ''selfhood ...

was natural to him like an Amalaka fruit in one's hand. Adi Shankara took the boy into his party and started towards his next destination.

References

* Madhava Vidyaranya, Sankara-Digvijaya, translated by Swami Tapasyananda, Sri Ramakrishna Math, 2002, . Purchase online a
www.sriramakrishnamath.org

External links

Hastamlakam
Side by side translation in Hindi and English
Sri HastamalakacharyaSri Hastamalakacharya
{{authority control Advaitin philosophers 8th-century Indian philosophers People from Thrissur district Scholars from Kerala

Meeting Adi Shankara

See also

References

External links