[Advaita-l] : ONLY ONE PLACE - AdhyArOpa-apavAda

[Jaldhar H. Vyas]

On Tue, 27 May 2003, Jay Nelamangala wrote:

> I was informed by some of my friends in the other list that Advaita uses
> adhyArOpa-apavAda  to interpret Veda.
>
> But Sri VedavyAsa has made it mandatory that we use "samanvaya" to
> interpret and understand Veda.   The concept of Samanvaya itself comes
> not from any particular Vedantic school,  but comes from Shruti.
> Upakrama, upasamhAra,abhyAsa, apoorvatA, phala, arthavAda, upapatti
> are its steps.  The former ones in the list are weaker than the latter ones.
> Thus, the  steps in samanvaya are all very well defined,  and upapatti which
> means 'logic' or 'reason'  is the strongest among these,  as it is a very
> fundamental requirement that what we understand from Veda should be
> coherent and make logical sense.
>

Yes these rules were systemized in the Purva Mimamsa Darshana of Maharshi
Jaimini.  Vedanta is the Uttara Mimamsa and all Vedantic darshanas
including Advaita accept the validity of these rules for Vedic
interpretation though they disagree about their relative place.

> >From the point of view of Advaita,  what were the short comings of such a
> "samanvaya"  technique provided by Sri VedavyAsa for it to ignore
> samanvaya and adopt adhyArOpa-apavAda  instead of samanvaya while
> interpreting Veda?.
>

Advaita Vedanta for instance thinks that adhyaropa-apavada is superior for
the knowledge of Brahman.  However Upakrama etc. are used when
appropriate.

> Where in prasthAna-traya do we hear about adhyArOpa-apavAda?
> How do we use it?   What are its steps?.
>

There are discusiions of this in the Brahmasuta and upanishadbhashyas but
the real systematic exposition is in the works ofSureshvaracharya
particularly sambandhavarttika which is the first part of
brhadaranyakopanishadvhashyavarttika.  According to tradition
Sureshvaracharya in his purvashram was Mandana Mishra the dean of
Mimamsakas in Shankaracharyas time.

I'll try and post about this later.

-- 
Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>
It's a girl! See the pictures - http://www.braincells.com/shailaja/