Guruvayurappan - Adi Shankara's visit to Guruvayur

Part 11

Shankaracharya's visit to Guruvayur

Once Adi Shankara was travelling [akAsha marga] to Sringeri and was contemplating on the Advaita philosophy: that the Lord is omnipresent and that the divine form of the Lord cannot be abstracted and placed in an idol.

While he was passing by Malabar region above Guruvayur, he smiled at the pompousness of the procession of Sreebhootha Bali (feeding celestial attendants) and tried to pass the temple without making any obeisance to the Lord. The procession had reached the north-west corner. Suddenly his forward movement stopped, and he fell down to the ground. He soon recovered and saw the Lord in all his royalty. The place where he fell was inside the Guruvayur temple, right next to little Krishna. He immediately prostrated unto Lord Guruvayurappan, realizing his mistake and the inaccuracy of his words. He realized that it was Lord Krishna who had taught him a lesson and there he composed Bhaja Govindam and 8 slokas in praise of Govinda, known as Govinda Ashtakam.

Even today, there is a small opening in the roof over the North-West courtyard portion of the floor to mark the spot where Adi Shankara fell inside the Guruvayur temple.

Shankaracharya stayed for 41 days at the temple  and it was he who instituted the ritual of *Mandala Vilakku* (lighting of lamps for 41 days).

It was indeed a divine play of the Lord since the Lord wanted to have the darshan of Adi Shankara who was a proponent of Advaita philosophy!

Another version

There is an interesting story about Adi Shankaracharya, the famous founder of Advaita Vedanta or the school of non-dualism which is connected with the temple of Guruvayur. At that time Shankaracharya advocated only meditation on the supreme Brahman, the formless Absolute. He possessed many siddhis or supernormal powers and one day when he was travelling through the air, he happened to pass over the temple of Guruvayur where Guruvayurappan was being carried round on an elephant on his daily morning ride! This is a ritual which takes place three times a day and crowds flock to see this divine sight.

Shankaracharya was about to pass on with hardly a glance at the procession below, when despite his fabulous powers, he found himself forcibly dragged to the ground in order to bow to the embodied Brahman who was being carried round on an elephant!! After this he became a great devotee of the Lord. It is to be noted that even though he was a pure Advaitin or advocate of the non-dual reality of Brahman, he established many temples all over India including the Himalayan shrines of Badrinath and Kedarnath and laid out the types of rituals to be followed therein.