Section 2: Live and let live

Religion induced misdeeds

Last crusade

Sankar was a child prodigy and a miracle in logic between 778 and 820 AD. He is credited with wiping away Buddhism in India through his brilliant argumentation in the later sixteen years of his life when he was preaching and teaching both; and, hence, named Sankar the teacher or Sankaracharya.  As is expected, stories regarding his acts of winning over opponents in arguments and miracles are numerous. It is hard to sift facts out of fiction in the tales about Sankar; but, he possessed not only intellectual acumen of high degree but also manojav or psychic potential to empty the mind of his arguing opponent. It was mantra-potential sharpened by him after his guru gifted it to the ascetic. None facing him could win over the seer, and he used the mantra-driven power of hypnosis for abject surrender of an arguing Buddhist. Buddhism spread in India on account of arguments by Buddha who possessed power and strength of possessive Tantra. He would disable his opponent through possession and jamming his mind. His followers swelled in number due to possession of their minds by Buddha aided by Tantra-backing of Amrapali.

 Sankar was winding up Buddhism all over India through his invincible,   ultra-sharp intellect and hypnotizing faculty.

 Indian Buddhists knew the strength of Sankar. He traveled all over India spreading Vedic cult without inhibitions. He dare not touch Kamrup, however, which was the center of Buddhist Tantra those days. Its notorious fame and stories had their waves felt in Varanasi too those days because Kashi was a place where learned ascetics from all over India camped. Fame of Kamrup in Tantra was high those days.

Sankar had drawn a simplistic, easy to follow philosophical model about Soul, Brahm and Maya for his battle of arguments against the Buddhist establishments all over the country and defeated his opponents in argumentation in public debates witnessed by learned philosophers.   He was confident about his victory in Kamrup as well.

 Victory of Sankar in Kamrup was not a matter of doubt. There was a question mark, however, about his survival after the use of Tantra by the enemy to kill and eliminate the ascetic during his visit to the center of Tantra.

That Buddhists would play the game of Tantra was certain, but its countering and annulling in is also quite simple in routine cases. ‘Eliminate the man who is using Tantra before he achieves his target’ says the rule.

Sankar took with him a ritualistic Mandan belonging to Mahismati town on the bank of river Mahismati (Mahi River in Gujarat these days).  Mandan was proficient in Vedic rituals and had potential to eliminate a Tantrist Buddhist through Abhichar before the latter killed Sankar.  

Mansion and ruling complex of Kamrup’s queen was located those days near Urvashi Hotel of today. Queen of the land welcomed Sankar and gave due honor, food and comfort.

 The knowledgeable queen welcomed the ascetic on the argument dais. There was no discussion, however.

“Take me as the loser of the battle, O Great Ascetic!” she said and continued “But also give me the right of being your wife as a defeated female, in the tradition of your religion and culture of my land.”

 “I’m marrying you now in the name of Lonkha, the deity of matrimony, to fulfill the obligation due upon me and you.  You must also do the same to honor the goddess. Please stay now with me for a year in my palace as my husband before moving out of Kamrup.” Move of Malun was witty because she had virtually outwitted the visiting team by shielding her learned Buddhists through a technical point.

Unusual and unexpected situation was before the great ascetic who could not marry ever under convention of Sanyas.  There was a rat smelling somewhere, untraceable by the ascetic and Mandan.

    Sankar refused to oblige the queen to avoid a double defeat: firstly, marrying a non-Brahmin, prohibited in his cult; and, secondly, to fall to a lower platform of householder’s life from the status of an ascetic.  The queen did not object the stand of the learned ascetic but she too was firm. Unless Sankar married her in the tradition of the land, he could not convert her subjects into Hindus.

   She continued to behave well with the learned travelers in her land and offered them best food and comforts.  They delivered talks to her courtiers and a few Buddhist philosophers appreciated them too.

Mandan learnt from a secret hearsay about the likely death of the great ascetic in Kamrup. The queen had designs to kill him through Tantra, a courtier of the queen communicated to him. Sankar was seen down in problems related to Tantra at the same time.  He left the palace of the queen for Varanasi in a boat. Mandan stayed at the bank of river Brahmaputra some distance away from the establishment of the queen for three weeks more.  He completed Abhichar against Malun before taking the route to Varanasi on foot.

When Mandan and Sankar met at Varanasi, the sage was down and suffering from intense operations of Tantra even after Malun was not expected to be alive.  Sankar had painful and bleeding piles, melting his will to sustain life. The saint had decided to burry himself in snow at Kedarnath to end his life. Although he had opined in his sermons that place of death for the one seated in Brahm was meaningless – whether sacred like Varanasi or vile like a dog-eater’s home – yet he was unable to overcome the command from within to move north to snowy Himalayas.  Spirit of Malun, the queen killed by Mandan, forced Sankar for taking an arduous journey merely for dying through self-inflicting auto-suggestive possession syndrome (saps).

Painful Tantra of Guplong was operating unabated; and, a depression due to the godly spirits parching on Malun was driving the ascetic to destroy his physical apparatus or body through saps. His adversaries would have been defeated after a couple of years when he overcame their Tantra and saps had he prepared himself to suffer and fight. He had age with him to sustain the onslaught of Guplong.  His enemies had finished his will to live, however, turning him into a hapless man unable to stand the force of Buddhist Tantra and command of active spirit of Malun on his head.

It is a pathetic scene when a person is undergoing torture under Tantra. My wife was in the same condition as Sankar twice: once in 1989 suffering with maddening passions on account of Buddhist Tantra; and, again in 2006 reeling under a Tantric dental pain defying all antibiotics and pain killers. Nothing could drag her out of her cries till the force of Tantra upon her terminated through the intervention of goddesses in 1989, and I moved out her toothache.

 The saint underwent torture of walking to Kedarnath in the last leg of his life after reaching Kankhal (Hardwar) from Varanasi in a boat. The ascetic made his way to the valley of snow at last, and succeeded in burying himself alive in snow not far from the temple of Siva.