Bøger af Adi Shankara

The Vivekachudamani (Sanskrit Vivekacüamäi) is an introductory treatise within the Advaita Vedanta tradition of Hinduism, traditionally attributed to Adi Shankara of the eighth century CE. It is in the form of a poem in the Shardula Vikridita metre, and for many centuries has been celebrated as a prakaräa grantha ('teaching manual') of Advaita. Vivekachudamani literally means 'the crest-jewel of discrimination'. The text discusses key concepts and the viveka or discrimination or discernment between real (unchanging, eternal) and unreal (changing, temporal), Prakriti and Atman, the oneness of Atman and Brahman, and self-knowledge as the central task of the spiritual life and for Moksha. It expounds the Advaita Vedanta philosophy in the form of a self-teaching manual, with many verses in the form of a dialogue between a student and a spiritual teacher. The Reverend John Henry Richards, MA, BD, was an Anglican priest born in 1934 who was ordained a deacon in Llandaff in 1977 and a priest there in 1978. He served in Maesteg, Cardiff, Penmark, and Stackpile Elidor until his retirement in 1999, and died in 2017. He is known for his English translations of the Sanskrit Ashtavakra Gita and Vivekachudamani, of the Pali Dhammapada, and of the medieval Latin De Adhaerendo Deo, all of which he put in the public domain and distributed on the Internet in the late 1990s.

Shankaras tekst er en klassiker. Shankara levede i 700-tallet og byggede sin lærdom på Vedantas nondualistiske filosofi. Hans formål er at vise, hvorledes vi lærer at skelne mellem illusion og Virkelighed, så kernen i vores essentielle Væren afsløres. ”Forstå hvem du er, gør dig klart at du er Det – den evige, uendelige, lyksalige Guddom, Den ultimative Virkelighed.” Illusion og virkelighed er Shankaras tema i denne afhandling, der i skønhed og klarhed overgår de fleste åndelige skrifter i Indien. Det er det glade budskab, forkyndt af en Guds mand der har fundet den kostbare perle, det lille punkt dybt i mennesket hvor lidelsen ikke når ind, hvor Gud bor i mennesket - ja, hvor mennesket er Gud. Denne nye genudgivelse bliver beriget med kommentarer af Christopher Isherwood og Swami Prabhavananda.