[Advaita-l] RE: Dasa Avatars(In response to Shri B. Shankar)

[Sankaran Aniruddhan]

namaste,

Sorry for the really late follow-up.

I objected to your statement that Sri Sankaracharya did reject the vedas.
The vedas includes the upanishads too. I wouldn't agree with a blanket
statement saying that He has rejected them. BTW, He has also quoted from the
non-upanishad parts of the vedas, hasn't He?

> If you say advaita is avidya, then according to the IshAvAsya Upanishad,
all
> advaitins are going to go to andhaM tamas. Are you ready to accept that?
> Anyway, read Sri Adi Shankara's commentary on I.U. He interprets the
avidya
> of IU to mean rituals. avidya can have many meanings.

I thought you meant the avidya affecting the jiva.

> An aspirant of the
> status of hiraNyagarbha, is addicted to vedic rituals which come under the
> scope of karma kanda. So, when I said avidya, I meant karma kanda. The
karma
> kanda portion is rejected as producing no liberation.(That is true
actually
> and it does make sense.)

Yes, Sankaracharya does reject the karma kanda but only for the purpose of
moksha. For normal day-to-day life, the karma kanda is of great importance.
There is therefore a significant difference between the rejections of any
part or whole of the vedas by Sankaracharya and Buddha.

Aniruddhan

Sruti smRti purANAnAm Alayam karuNAlayam
namAmi bhagavatpAda Sam.karam lokaSam.karam