Hastamalakacharya (

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

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

Adi Shankara Adi Shankara (8th c. CE), also called Adi Shankaracharya (, ), was an Indian Vedanga, Vedic scholar, Hindu philosophy, philosopher and teacher (''acharya'') of Advaita Vedanta. Reliable information on Shankara's actual life is scant, and h ...

, the Advaita

philosopher Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

. 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 Monasticism, monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in Cenobitic monasticism, communities or alone (hermits). A monastery generally includes a ...

founded by Adi Shankara in Dwaraka. Hastamalaka founded a matha by name Idayil Matham in Thrissur,

Kerala Kerala ( , ) is a States and union territories of India, state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile ...

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 offering 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 FIle:Atharva-Veda samhita page 471 illustration.png, upright=1.2, The Vedas are ancient Sanskrit texts of Hinduism. Above: A page from the ''Atharvaveda''. The Vedas ( or ; ), sometimes collectively called the Veda, are a large body of relig ...

and performed the

Yajnas In Hinduism, ''Yajna'' or ''Yagna'' (, ɐd͡ʒɲə ) also known as Hawan, is a ritual done in front of a sacred fire, often with mantras. Yajna has been a Vedic tradition, described in a layer of Vedic literature called Brahmanas, as well a ...

prescribed in the Vedas. There was also a

temple A temple (from the Latin ) is a place of worship, a building used for spiritual rituals and activities such as prayer and sacrifice. By convention, the specially built places of worship of some religions are commonly called "temples" in Engli ...

dedicated to

Shiva Shiva (; , ), also known as Mahadeva (; , , Help:IPA/Sanskrit, ɐɦaːd̪eːʋɐh and Hara, is one of the Hindu deities, principal deities of Hinduism. He is the God in Hinduism, Supreme Being in Shaivism, one of the major traditions w ...

and

Parvati Parvati (, , IPA: /Sanskrit phonology, pɑɾʋət̪iː/), also known as Uma (, , IPA: Sanskrit phonology, /ʊmɑː/) and Gauri (, , IPA: /Sanskrit phonology, gə͡ʊɾiː/), is one of the principal goddesses in Hinduism, revered as the Devi, ...

. 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'' () 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'' or ''acharya'', and an individual's initiation into a school in ...

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 religious teacher in Hinduism and Buddhism and a spiritual guide to Hindus and Buddhists. The designation has different meanings i ...

(''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 Advaita 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 (), 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 symbolic seat for ...

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

Self In philosophy, the self is an individual's own being, knowledge, and values, and the relationship between these attributes. The first-person perspective distinguishes selfhood from personal identity. Whereas "identity" is (literally) same ...

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 Swami Tapasyananda (1904-1991) was a senior monk of the Ramakrishna Mission. He was born in the Palat family of Ottapalam in Kerala, in 1904. His pre-monastic name was K. P. Balakrishnan Menon. In 1921, when he was just 17 years old, he met S ...

, 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