Totakacharya (

IAST The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration (IAST) is a transliteration scheme that allows the lossless romanisation of Indic scripts as employed by Sanskrit and related Indic languages. It is based on a scheme that emerged during ...

') 8th century CE) was a disciple of Ādi Śaṅkara, the

Advaita Vedanta ''Advaita Vedanta'' (; sa, अद्वैत वेदान्त, ) is a Hindu sādhanā, a path of spiritual discipline and experience, and the oldest extant tradition of the orthodox Hindu school Vedānta. The term ''Advaita'' ...

teacher. He was made the first Jagadguru (''head'') of the Jyotir Pīthaṃ, the original northern maṭha founded by Ādi Śaṅkara in

Uttarakhand Uttarakhand ( , or ; , ), also known as Uttaranchal ( ; the official name until 2007), is a state in the northern part of India. It is often referred to as the "Devbhumi" (literally 'Land of the Gods') due to its religious significance and ...

. He founded a maṭha by name Vadakke modam in Thrissur, Kerala.

Meeting Ādi Śaṅkara

The states that when Ādi Śaṅkara was at Śṛṅgeri, he met a boy named Giri. Ādi Śaṅkara accepted the boy as his disciple. Giri was a hard-working and loyal disciple of his

Guru Guru ( sa, गुरु, IAST: ''guru;'' Pali'': garu'') is a Sanskrit term for a "mentor, guide, expert, or master" of certain knowledge or field. In pan- Indian traditions, a guru is more than a teacher: traditionally, the guru is a reverential ...

, Ādi Śaṅkara, though he did not appear bright to the other disciples. One day, Giri was busy plucking flowers for pooja, when Ādi Śaṅkara sat down to begin a lesson on Advaita Vedānta. He however did not start the lesson saying he was waiting for Giri to come back from his chores and singing lessons. At this, Padmapada pointed to a wall and said that it would be the same if Ādi Śaṅkara taught to this dumb object as he taught to Giri. Now, Ādi Śaṅkara wanted to reward Giri for his loyalty and devotion. Thus he mentally granted Giri the complete knowledge of all the śāstras (''sciences''). The enlightened Giri composed extempore the Toṭākāṣṭakam, a

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural diffusion ...

poem in the ''toṭaka'' metre, in praise of the Guru Ādi Śaṅkara. Thus the humble disciple Giri became Toṭākācārya.

Works

*Śrutisārasamuddharaņa — Published edition: Edited with a commentary titled Girisambhutaratna, by Swami Vidyananda Giri, Sri Kailash Ashrama, Rishikesh, 1972 *Toṭākāṣṭakam

Toṭakāṣṭakam

The Toṭakāṣṭakam was composed by Giri in praise of his Guru Ādiśaṅkara. Literally, it means a rhyme of eight (

: ) verses (

śloka Shloka or śloka ( sa, श्लोक , from the root , Macdonell, Arthur A., ''A Sanskrit Grammar for Students'', Appendix II, p. 232 (Oxford University Press, 3rd edition, 1927). in a broader sense, according to Monier-Williams's dictionary, is ...

s) composed by Toṭaka. The poem's meter is anapestic tetrameter, with four feet of unstressed-unstressed-stressed syllables (laghu-laghu-guru characters) per line, and four lines per stanza.

Footnotes

# The delusion here refers to Avidyā. According to Advaitavedānta the whole world is a figment of imagination and perceived as real due to delusion. The poet is asking for removal of this delusion from his preceptor. The poet has no confusion about Śiva being Śaṅkara.

References

*Comans, Michael (aka Vasudevacharya) (1996) ''Extracting the Essence of the Sruti: The Srutisarasamuddharnam of Totakacarya'' – Publ. Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, India. * Madhava Vidyaranya, Sankara-Digvijaya, translated by Swami Tapasyananda, Sri Ramakrishna Math, 2002, {{ISBN, 81-7120-434-1. Purchase online a
www.sriramakrishnamath.org
Advaitin philosophers People from Chamoli district

Meeting Ādi Śaṅkara

Works

Toṭakāṣṭakam

Footnotes

See also

References