ADVAITA-L Digest - help locating source

[Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian]

vidya at cco.caltech.edu wrote:

> > This reminds me of the statement in the gauDapaada kaarikaa, "what is unreal
 in
> > the beginning and at the end, cannot have any reality in the middle". So
 jagan
> > mithyaa _is_ in reality jagan mithyaa also. Or am I missing something here?
>
> The answer to this is related to the reason why Sankara's authorship of the
> vivekacUDAmaNi is doubted by some.
>
> The prime concern of philosophy is to explain how one knows what one claims ot
> know. Sankara, in the brahmasUtra bhAshya, accepts the pUrva mImAm.sA theory

Yes, that's the aim of philosophy, but the question is what one _really_
knows?

> of knowledge - svata: pramANa, parata: apramANa. All knowledge is *valid* in
> and of itself, unless contradicted by other knowledge. Thus, for the ordinary
> one, the perception of the universe is what gives him his notions of the
> universe, and he has no choice but to assume that the jagat is real. It is
> only the one who has realized the unitive knowledge of brahman who can say
> jagan mithyA. Till that happens, the knowledge of the universe is not
 sublated.

No. I emphatically disagree. He has no choice to assume that jaagrat is real
_and_ to give svapna an _equal_ status. This can be done with logic _alone_.
There is no need to to talk about unitive knowledge. The unitive thread is
obvious, it's the self. Existence of any other unitive knowledge is mere
speculation. Taking the jaagrat alone is definitely not classical advaita. I
will not refer to the arguments gauDapaada gives in the kaarikaa, the
vaithaatya prakaraNa has a detailed discussion on this.

Why, the suutra bhaashhya, in the kaarikaa itself a _provisional_ reality to
the jaagrat is admitted. But it is pointed out that svapna has the _same_
provisional reality. It is also admitted that this provisional reality is not
like that of the horns of a hare!

For the intro. to II.34 in the kaarikaa, shaMkara says,

"The nature of diversity is inscrutable. It is something that cannot be
described as real or unreal".

Again in III.6,

"Though the diversity of forms, functions and names of the aakaasha in different
pots is admitted, yet this does not imply any real differentiation in aakaasha
itself. The same is the conclusion regarding the jivas."

Or alternatively if you say that all knowledge is *valid* it certainly includes
the dream state also. In fact, this is the very argument of gauDapaada for the
verse II.34. Why is the reality of the state provisional? Simple, because
knowledge of one state is contradicted in the other states (ex. jaagrat and
svapna).

In precisely this way jagat _is_ mithya. After all we say our dreams are unreal,
by logic alone we can see that the jaagrat state is equivalent to the svapna
state in all respects. So the jagat is mithya indeed. Or you should say the
dreams are _completely_ real. It doesn't matter.

> Later advaitins also draw a distinction between mithyA, which is just false,
> and asat, which is unreal. Thus "a hare's horn" is unreal all through, in
> space and in time, hence asat. The status of jagat is different from this.
>
> In the context of the vivekacUDAmaNi, the guru says "jagan mithyA" to the
> student, for purposes of teaching to begin with. The student is presumably
> still not a brahmajnAnI, and has to realize the unitive knowledge himself.

I have to point out something else here. In the V, shaMkara uses ajaata vaada,
whereas in the bhaashhya he uses shR^ishTi dR^ishTi vaada. There is no problem
or contradiction here. If the western scholars are doubting V because of this
then they better learn something about Indian tradition before attempting to
study advaita vedaanta. ramaNa proves to be an uncompromising ajaata vaadin in
many of his works and suddenly in the aksharamaNamaalai he says

"azaku sundaram pOl neeyum akamum mutrapinnamaayiruppOm aruNaachala" - Let us
be united like azaku and sundara (Ramana's father and mother), O aruNaachala.

There is no contradiction here. If ramaNa had been born much earlier, these
people would have said that the aksharamaNamaalai wasn't composed by ramaNa.
It's the, either A or B, western mentality, which cannot be used to judge Indian
works. shaMkara can adopt different positions to teach different grades of
aspirants. In fact he himself makes that pretty clear in his bhaashhya to the
kaarikaa. The position that shaMkara cannot say different things in the V and
the suutra bhaashhya is typical judeo-christian reasoning which cannot be used
to judge Indian works.

Oh, BTW if this is the reason why V is doubted, then they better start doubting
the bhaashhya to the kaarikaa and the upadeshasaahasrii also :-). I bet they
must have started already, after all this would prove enough material for a
Ph.D :-).

Ramakrishnan.
--
Two monks were arguing about a flag. One said, "The flag is moving." The other
said, "The wind is moving." The sixth patriarch happened to be passing by. He
told them, "Not the wind, not the flag; mind is moving." - The Gateless Gate