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THE ASCENDENCY & ECLIPSE OF BHAGAVĀN MAHĀVĪRA’S CULT 327
Nambudhiri Brāhmin family at Kāladi, a village less than twelve miles distant from Kuņavāyir Kottam, within 30 years after its foundation. 1
Tradition, recorded in literature, tells us that he spent his childhood and boyhood there. We are not interested in his trials and tribulations in northern India. That which concerns us is his later return to the South to establish a 'mutt in that quarter.
74. It is acknowledged by all schools of Sankara biography that he established his first mutt at Badarikāśrama in the Himalayas.
The second at Dwārakā, the western end of India, and the third at Jagannātha-puri, the eastern end. Having chosen the above three cardinal points appropriately for founding his monasteries, why did he forget the southern land's end, The Cape Kanyākumārī, and choose instead Sringeri and/or Kāńcī, which are each five hundred miles to the north of the cape ?2
Is it not natural to postulate that there was a formidable physical force operating against his project in and around Kanyakumārī at that period of history?-_What was that force ?
75. Since Sankara is considered to have passed away in his 32nd year of age, and since he took to hermit life in his 16th, it stands to reason to calculate that he must have been about 27/28 years old at the time of his return to the South. When we take into account that he had but four or five more years to live, it is enough for our purpose to prove that the above-said adverse force was in existence during that short period i.e. between circa A.D. 815 and 820. 1. 'Kāladi literally means 'a foot-prinť. We do not know the original
name of the place. This name, which implied the foot-print of Sankara,
must have come into vogue but after Sankara's death. 2.
For obvious reasons, we are deliberately by-passing the irrelevent sideissue o geri versus Kāpcr' in this discussion.
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