________________ A NOTE ON SHANKERS' AGE BY H. H. WILSON "The birth of Shanker presents to the same discoidan ee 'of opinion as "every other reinarkable incident ainongst the Hindus. :: 3. The Kadali Brabmins, who form an establish mient: following and teaching his systeni, assert his appearance about 2000 years since; some accounts place him about the beginning of the Christian era, others in the third or fourth century. afier., A manuscript bistory of the kings of Kong, in colonel Makenzies, collections, makes him contemporury with Tiru Vikram Deva Chacruvorty sovereign of Shund pure in the Dek hen A.D. 178. At Shringagiri. on the edge of the Western ghnuts and now in the Mysore territory, at which place, he is said to have founded a college that stiil exists and assumes thc supreme. control of the Smarta Brahmins of the Peninsula, an anti: quity of 1600 years is attributed to him. and common tradition makes him, about the 1200 years old. The Bhoja Prabundh enumerates. Shunker amongst its worthies and contemporary with that prince. bis antiquity will then be : between eight and yine ce nturies The followers of : Madhvacharya in: Tulura seem to be attempted to reconcile Rese contradictory accounts by supposing hiin to have been born three times, first at Sivuli in Tuluva about fifteen years ago again in Malabar some centuries later and finally at Padukachaytra in Puluva no more than 600 years since. latter assertion being intended evidently to do honour to their own founder: whose cate that was, by cnabling him to triumph over Shanker in a suppossi P.P. Ac. Gunratnasuri M.S. Jun Gun Aaradhak Trust
