Kumarila Bhatta was a great scholar who was self immolating himself when Adi Shankara reached him. He asked the sage to stop this act of self immolating himself. Kumarila said he could not stop this act of penence since he had betrayed his Guru from Nalanda university. He wanted to destroy Buddhism so he took training in Buddhism from this great Master Dharmakirti. Kumarila was a great scholar in a branch of Hindu philosophy. But when he was discovered by Dharmakirtis disciples, they asked him to prove the greatness of the Vedas by jumping from a cliff. He survived but lost his eye. He later told his disciples that he had inadvertently said if the Vedas were true. The word “if” created that disbelief hence he lost his eye.
Later to do penence for cheating his Guru, Kumarila did self immolation.
Kumarila’s disciple Mandana Mishra became the first Shankaracharya of Shringeri.
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