Sandilya Bhakti Sutras : Date

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Narada Bhakthi Sutras refer to s’AnDilya twice.

  1. Adhyaya 1, Sutra 18 : refers to the views of s’Andilya.
  2. Adhyaya 5, Sutra 83 : refers to kumAra (the son of Siva), Vyasa, Suka, the son of Vyasa, s’Andilya, Garga,Vishnu, kaunDinya, s’ESa, uddhava, AruNi, the student of Dhaumya, Bali, Hanuman and vibhISana, the brother of Ravana रावण as the bhakti AcAryAs.

Who was Sandilya ?

We know him as

  • the spiritual guide of the Ikshvaku king Dilipa, a purvaja, of Sri Rama श्री राम,
  • the priest of Trisanku
  • the priest of Nanda, Sri Krishna’s adopted father,
  • one of the rishis who conversed with Bhishma on his bed of arrows.
  • the one who performed the putrESTi yagnyam, for s’AtAnika, the son of Janamejaya.
  • the father of Sankha and Likhita, the smriti kartas
  • one who is mentioned in bRhatAraNyaka upaniSad
  • the author of a passage called s’AnDilya vidyA, also referred to in the Sandilya Sutras.
  • the author of Sandilyopanishad
  • the author of Sandilya Samhita

Based on this traditionalist consider him extremely long lived and modernists tend to dismiss this either as a fable or as a family name.

However, in my research on Yuga Durations documented in detail here : How many kinds of Yugas are there?, I have seen and shown that the Yuga definitions grew in duration taking more and more planetary alignments into consideratation from the time of Brahma (5 years) to the time of Aryabhatta (4,320,000 years). Regular readers are by now familiar with this concept but new readers are advised to read the article, How many kinds of Yugas are there? and follow the links to the supporting articles in that post before reacting.

Once we know that the definiton of Yuga lengths grew over time, and that they were short in the beginning,  it is not at all difficult to understand that some of the long lived RSis (rishis) like Valmiki, Veda Vyasa वेद व्यास, Sandilya and others spanned several yugas. They may have lived for hundreds of years but not definitely not millions of years. Interested readers may study Generations between Rama and Krishna. as well as Generations previous to Sri Rama and How long did ancient Indians live?

Date of Sandilya Sutras

  1. Kasyapa is mentioned in sUtra 29
  2. bAdarAyaNa is mentioned in 30 and 91
  3. The 83rd Sutra refers to the superiority of  bhakti  to karma, gnyana and yoga according to ‘s’abda”. While sabda is generally taken to mean Vedas, some scholars treat it as a reference to the Bhagavad Gita, since Bhagavad Gita was also spoken by Sri Krishna himself. I take it to mean Vedas.

I would put Sandilya Bhakti Sutras earlier to the Narada Bhakti Sutras, which I put earlier to the Bhagavad Gita which was the at the time of  Bharata War, 27 years before 3102 BCE.

Authorship and Copyright Notice : All Rights Reserved : Satya Sarada Kandula

Satya Sarada Kandula

Writer, Researcher, Photographer
http://ancientindians.net
Founder and Professor
http://ancientindiansuniversity.com





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