Sankaracarya (788–820)

Sivanandalahari, the Inundation of Divine Bliss, is a work noted as mch for its literary beauty, as for its devotional fervour. It is attributed by tradition to the great Acarya Sankara, the commentator on the Vedanta texts and the main architect of the Advaita Vedanta philosophy. Some people find a kind of inconsistency in a great philsopher being the author of a fervently emotional piece of Bhakti literature. But to those who know the Vedantic tradition, there is no inherent inconsistency in this. For, unlike some intellectuals, the authentic teachers of the Vedanta have held that Jnana and Bhakti are not antipodes but the obverse and reverse of the same coin, being but two aspects of the impact made on the human mind by the realisation of the Personal-Impersonal being revealed by the Vedas. According to the Vedanta, a philosopher can be a devotee, and a devotee, a philosopher.

Longing for God is the quintessence of devotion. So long as man is solely engrossed with worldly values, the pursuit of pleasure and power, longing for God will not germinate in his mind. Even faith of a genuine nature is impossible for one of that outlook. The nature of that divine longing, how it absorbs the whole man, is graphically described in Verse 61 of the Text , which runs as follows: 'That state of mind is called Bhakti or divine loove, wherein all movements of thought go automatically to the lotus feet of the Lord and stick to them for ever, just as the seeds of the ankola tree (on falling) gravitate to the parent tree, the iron needle to the magnetic bar, the devoted wife to her husband, the creeper to the tree, and the river to the ocean.'… (mais)

> HYMNES ET CHANTS VEDANTIQUES, de Shankaracharya (traduit du Sanskrit avec introduction et notes par René ALLAR, éditions orientales). — Le présent ouvrage est un choix de textes qui, par la forme et surtout par le fond, mènent d'emblée au coeur de l'hindouisme.
Ces hymnes et chants védantiques, petits traités versifiés jouissent en Inde d'une grande popularité. Cette édition contient entre autres la traduction de l'Atma-Bocha (la connaissance du Soi), traité attribué à Shankara, d'une importance majeure pour l'étude du Védanta et de la « Science du Soi » (Atma-Vidya).
—L'Originel, (4), Mars/Avril 1978… (mais)