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As I discuss in this question, by far the most popular school of Hindu philosophy is the Vedānta school, which bases its tenets on the doctrines laid out in the Brahma Sūtras, a work by the sage Vyāsa which summarizes and systematizes the philosophical teachings of the Upaniṣads. You can read the Brahma Sūtras here.

In any case, in Adhyāya 2 Pada 2 of the Brahma Sūtras, Vyāsa discusses various rival schools to Vedānta. In particular, he says this:

Topic-7: God Is Not a Mere Superintendent

  1. For the Lord there can be no creatorship, for that leads to incongruity.
  1. And (the incongruity arises) because of the impossibility of a relationship.
  2. And (the position is untenable) because of the impossibility of (Nature) coming under (His) direction. (Or) And (God cannot be proved), since no physical support (adhiṣṭhāna) is possible for Him.
  3. Should it be argued that God will direct Nature like (a man directing) the organs, then it cannot be so, for that will result in God’s having experiences (of happiness, sorrow etc.). (Or) If a body, equipped with sense-organs, be assumed for God, (we say that) this is not possible; because of (consequent) experiences etc.
  4. God will be subject to finitude or loss of omniscience.

Topic 8: Bhagavata View Refuted

  1. (The Bhagavata view that Samkarsana and others originate successively from Vāsudeva and others is wrong), since any origin (for the soul) is impossible.
  2. And (this view is wrong because) an implement cannot originate from its agent (who wields it).
  3. Alternatively even if (it be assumed that Vāsudeva and others are) possessed of knowledge, (majesty etc.,), still the defect cannot be remedied.
  4. Besides, (in this scripture) many contradictions are met with and it runs counter to the Vedas.

Now most commentators on the Brahma Sūtras agree that Adhikaraṇa (Topic) 7 refers to the philosophy of the Śaiva Āgamas, the defining texts of Śaivism, and Adhikaraṇa 8 refers to the philosophy of the Pañcarātra Āgamas, the defining texts of Vaiṣṇavism. Where they differ is on how they interpret Vyasa's attitudes toward these two philosophies.

The Advaitin commentator Ādi Śaṅkarācārya argues that in Adhikaraṇa 7, Vyāsa is criticizing the Śaiva Agamas for their belief that Īśvara (The supreme lord) is only the efficient cause of the Universe, as opposed to the Vedānta school's view that Brāhmaṇa is both the efficient cause and the material cause of the Universe. And he argues that in Adhikaraṇa 8, Vyasa is criticizing the Pañcarātra Āgamas for their belief that the Jīva emerges from Brāhmaṇa, as opposed to the Vedanta school's view that the Jīva has always existed (as I discuss here).

Now as expected, Śaivite commentators dispute Ādi Śaṅkarācārya's interpretation of Adhikaraṇa 7, and Vaiṣṇava commentators dispute his interpretation of Adhikaraṇa 8. In each case, they either say that Vyāsa is criticizing people who misinterpret the philosophy in question, not the philosophy itself, or they say that the Adhikaraṇa is referring to a completely different philosophy than the one Ādi Śaṅkarācārya thinks it refers to. But my question is, is Ādi Śaṅkarācārya the only commentator on the Brahma Sutras that believes that the Brahma Sūtras are criticizing both the Shaiva Agamas & Pañcarātra Āgamas?

Now of course Ādi Śaṅkarācārya has had a lot of followers who have written commentaries based on his commentary, but I'm asking whether any non-Advaita commentators agree with his interpretations of both Adhikaraṇa 7 and Adhikaraṇa 8. To facilitate answering my question, I've compiled a table of commentaries and how they interpret these Adhikaraṇas, along with links to sources backing it up:

┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
┃    Commentator       ┃     Philosophy       ┃ Reject ┃   Reject   ┃
┃                      ┃                      ┃ Shaiva?┃Pancharatra?┃
┣━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╋━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╋━━━━━━━━╋━━━━━━━━━━━━┫
┃ Ādi Śaṅkarācārya     ┃ Nirviśeṣādvaita      ┃   Yes   ┃    Yes     ┃
┣━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╋━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╋━━━━━━━━╋━━━━━━━━━━━━┫
┃ Rāmānujācārya        ┃ Viśiṣtādvaita        ┃  Yes   ┃    No      ┃
┣━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╋━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╋━━━━━━━━╋━━━━━━━━━━━━┫
┃ Mādhvācārya          ┃ Dvaita               ┃  Yes     ┃    href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/mBzlv.jpg">No      ┃
┣━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╋━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╋━━━━━━━━╋━━━━━━━━━━━━┫
┃ Baladeva             ┃ Acintya Bhedābheda   ┃  Yes   ┃    No      ┃
┣━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╋━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╋━━━━━━━━╋━━━━━━━━━━━━┫
┃ Nimbārka             ┃ Dvaitādvaita         ┃  Yes   ┃    No      ┃
┣━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╋━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╋━━━━━━━━╋━━━━━━━━━━━━┫
┃ Śrīkanṭha Śivācārya  ┃ Śivādvaita           ┃   No   ┃    Yes     ┃
┣━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╋━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╋━━━━━━━━╋━━━━━━━━━━━━┫
┃ Śrīpati              ┃ Śakti Viśiṣtādvaita  ┃   No   ┃    Yes     ┃
┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┻━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┻━━━━━━━━┻━━━━━━━━━━━━┛

As you can see, only Ādi Śaṅkarācārya answers "Yes-Yes". So are there other commentators that give the same answers?

There are some commentators who have no sectarian affiliations, like Bhāskara (whom I discuss here) and Vijñānabhikṣu, so how do they interpret these two Adhikaraṇas? What about commentators belonging to sects other than Vaiṣṇavism or Śaivism? Have any Śaktas, Ganapatya, Sauras, or Kaumaras written commentaries on the Brahma Sutras?

And what about the Vaikhanasas, who worship Viṣṇu but do not follow Pañcarātra Āgamas? Do they interpret Adhikaraṇa 8 as a criticism of the Pañcarātra Āgamas, or do they think it refers to their own Āgamas. Srinivasa Dikshitar wrote a Vaikhānasa commentary on the Brahma Sūtras, as I discuss here, so I'd be interested in hearing what he has to say on this issue.

Also, are there any commentators who would answer "No-No", i.e. who would say that the Brahma Sutras do not criticize either the Pañcarātra Āgamas or the Śaiva Āgamas? I assume that especially the sort of people who believe in religious unity would tend to believe that all the major sects following Āgamas are correct in their philosophical doctrines.

Bingming
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Keshav Srinivasan
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  • @Rickross I actually have a very long list of questions I want to ask, and it's constantly getting longer as new questions arise in my mind. And then every so often I take one of the questions from the list, do research to try to answer it, and then I post it on the site. If you're interested I could show you the list in the chat room. – Keshav Srinivasan Feb 15 '16 at 13:18
  • @Rickross Keshav you have outdone yourself this time.. although I like Rickross's view... – Surya Feb 20 '16 at 17:25
  • @Surya Haha... And thanks! I compiled a lot of quotes in this question, but I'm still not satisfied. Like I would have liked to include quotes from Vallavhacharya's commentary and Srinivasa Dikshitar's commentary, but I can't find an online version of either one in English. – Keshav Srinivasan Feb 21 '16 at 04:12
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    Incredible question. @KeshavSrinivasan please post this on your blog or website if you have one. Very very thorough question and so well thought out. – user3547 Mar 01 '16 at 08:27
  • @KeshavSrinivasan what do AdiShankara considers about the passages containing greatness of Pancharatra in Mahabharat... does he consider them to be interpolation..? – Tezz May 27 '16 at 12:51
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    @Tezz He doesn't discuss the Mahabharata quotes about Pancharatra, although Ramanujacharya and other commentators discuss them. In any case, Adi Shankaracharya makes clear that his only disagreement with the Pancharatra Agamas is their (apparent) views on the relation between the Jivatma and Brahman; he makes clear that meditating on Sriman Narayana using the Pancharatra Agamas is a valid path to Moksha. – Keshav Srinivasan May 27 '16 at 13:36
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    @KeshavSrinivasan, sincere advice - if you really serious about getting answers to most questions you ask on this website, and you can understand tamil, speak to your parents, get samashrayanam under acharyan, and listen to upanyasams and kalakshepams. there is treasure-trove of knowledge in velukkudi / karunakara / krishnapremi swamin's lectures, and then deeper under advanced vidwaans who teach brahma sutra bhashyams. – ram May 29 '17 at 07:27
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    @ram I do understand Tamil, and I've watched lectures on YouTube, both those of people like Velukkudi Krishnan and Karunakarachariar, and the Sri Bhashya lectures of M.A. Alwar. And you're right, they do have a wealth of information, but unfortunately they're not enough to answer most of my questions. Learning in-person from an Acharya would probably be better. In any case, regarding Samashrayanam I'm eager to do it, but my parents aren't willing to let me do it yet at this age. – Keshav Srinivasan May 29 '17 at 08:17
  • @KeshavSrinivasan, at this age ? how old r u ? it is normally done right after upanayanam. Did ur parents get it done for themselves - if so, at what age? – ram May 29 '17 at 15:21
  • @ram No, my parents have never done it. My grandmother has done it though. I'm 25 years old. At least in my family parents don't allow youngsters to perform Samashrayanam, because of the pain of the hot metal brands. So they make them wait until they're older. Now I've tried to convince them that it doesn't hurt that much, but so far to no avail. – Keshav Srinivasan May 29 '17 at 18:02
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    @KeshavSrinivasan, people as young as 7 and as old as 70 do it regularly if you go to mutt or ashram. it does not hurt much when it is done, it does hurt later as it heals. And that pain is seriously nothing compared to the rewards. Anuvaramban (bharath) was asking similar question to Karunakarachariar during a lecture in chennai.. he said it is for each individual atma to get it done, it is better if done with support of a family, but if circumstances don't allow it, it can be done on your own as well. – ram May 29 '17 at 18:43
  • @ram Are you suggesting that I do it disobeying my parent's instructions? And yeah, the slight pain of the metal brands is nothing compared to the eternal reward of Moksha. – Keshav Srinivasan May 29 '17 at 19:40
  • @KeshavSrinivasan, not disobeying their command, but also not waiting for them to get it done if that was on your mind. also, in vadakalai sampradayam, there is another step bharanyasam. – ram May 29 '17 at 22:11
  • @ram Oh no, I'm not waiting for them to get it done; they may never get it done. I'm just waiting for their permission. – Keshav Srinivasan May 29 '17 at 22:12
  • @ram And yeah, I'm familiar with Bharanyasam. I'm a Thenkalai by birth, so we don't do Bharanyasam, but personally my beliefs lean more to the Vadakalai side, and I'm unsure of whether Thenkalais or Vadakalais are right about whether Bharanyasam is necessary for Sharanagati. In any case, I'm definitely planning to do Samashrayanam with the Vanamamalai Matham Jeeyar (the Thenkalai Jeeyar my family follows), but then later in life I may go to some Vadakalai Jeeyar and do Bharanyasam, if after studying the issue I conclude that Bharanyasam is necessary. – Keshav Srinivasan May 30 '17 at 00:26
  • Vallabhacharya,a Vaishnava Commentator gives a Yes-Yes reply – Srinivas Dec 17 '17 at 08:51
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    @Srinivas You mean to say that Vallabhacharya thinks Vyasa is criticizing the Pancharatra Agamas? That would be weird, considering that Vallabhacharya was a follower of Pancharatra as far as I know. In any case, where did you hear this? – Keshav Srinivasan Dec 17 '17 at 08:59
  • Here I got it from this: – Srinivas Dec 17 '17 at 09:57
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    @Srinivas Did you forget to put the link? – Keshav Srinivasan Dec 17 '17 at 09:59
  • I think Bhaskara refutes both Shaiva and Pancaratra. –  Feb 02 '19 at 10:25
  • @KeshavSrinivasan Bhaskara had sectarian affiliations. See for instance https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.150038/page/n17 He supported Pañcarātra doctrine and is identified with tridaṇḍa (aka Vaisnava). Therefore, to call him non-sectarian is not correct! – user965167 Nov 19 '19 at 14:03
  • Please note that Shankaracharya DID NOT reject Panchratra agamas. He only rejected the interpretations they are written with. One can easily write an Advaitic version of the same too! The Reject Panchratra? Yes the part seems wrong to me. It should be rejecting only the interpretation, than rather the whole thing. – User 29449 Jan 02 '24 at 08:22
  • Vallabhacharya was Not a follower of the pancharatra Agamas, that much is clear. He Actually calls pancharatra veda viruddha in his Anubhasya –  Mar 04 '24 at 15:17

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Actually Bhaskara and Vallabhacharya also say the same thing as Shankaracharya has said about this adhikarana: Not a wholesale rejection of Pancharatra but only a partial. The theology part is not rejected but only certain aspects are rejected. Nimbaraka, like Madhwacharya, has taken that adhikarana to be about Shakti philosophy and not Vaishnava Bhagavata Pancharatra as Shankara, Bhaskara, Ramanuja and Vallabhacharya have taken that to be. For Ramanuja, as I understand, there are a few purvapaksha sutras and a few siddhanta sutras in that adhikarana.

Subrahmanian Vaidyanathan
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