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Journalism of Courage
Sankara well understood that the faith of the common man cannot be sustained by his metaphysical beliefs alone. Religion to him above all signifies rites and their performance. Interestingly enough, it was in this arena that the fragmentation of Hindus was most evident in Sankara8217;s time. Hindus were then divided into distinct sects on the basis of the deity they worshipped; a major schism split apart Vaishnavites and Saivites. Though the idea of one God was tacitly acknowledges, Vaishnavites considered themselves as distinct from Saivites, and superior to them in spiritual terms; the Saivites, on the other hand, similarly held themselves to be superior to the Vaishnavites. Artificial barriers of this kind divided the devotees of various deities.
Sankara took recourse to a simple expedient to bring together devotees of various gods. He initiated the practice of simultaneously worshipping the following five deities; Surya, Ganesha, Visnu, Siva and Sakti. This became known as Pancayatana Puja. Another deity which was then worshipped widely in India was Bhairava. Sankara initially did not accept that Bhairva should be included among the deities to which obeisance was to be paid. This was because Bhairava held a status totally subservient to Siva in the Hindu pantheon. As a result of this exclusion devotees of Bhairava were offended. To pacify them, Sankara later agreed that Bhairava may be worshipped along with the five other deities mentioned earlier8230;. One usually finds a large number of idols representing various deities in temples built during medieval centuries. Perhaps this had something to do with what Sankara had preached earlier.
Though Sankara was a bitter critic of various schools of Buddhism which had emerged in early centuries of the Christian era, he had profound respect for Buddha. He accorded to Buddha the status of a pre-eminent deity in the Hindu pantheon.
Extracted from 8216;Vedanta to Modern Science8217;, 2005
