[Advaita-l] bhAgavata purANa

[bhaskar.yr at in.abb.com]

praNAms
Hare Krishna

I'd like to share few of my thoughts here :


-- Jaldharji, if we accept Wendy Doniger's dates, many of the purANas were
penned down later to shaN^kara, and hence their number could not have been
18 during shaN^kara's time. Please note though that this does not mean that
the stories/ideas themselves were not known.

bhaskar :

My cybernet guruji Sri Vidyashankara Sundaresan prabhuji too believes that
bhagavata is the much later work (around 10th or 11th century) when
compared to parasara muni's vishNu purANa which shankara quotes at some
places in his commentaries.


-- What is the status of purANas in advaita vEdAnta? Do they form part of
the shabda pramANa?

bhaskar :

It is a traditional belief that purANa-s are the essence & appendage to the
apaurushEya shruti.  As such they are somewhat in an inferior position when
it comes to authority.  They depend on the Vedas for their authority but
the Vedas do not depend on them for authority.For that matter advaita
traditionalists take both rAmAyaNa and mahAbhArata also as ancient
literature & treat them as valid pramANa, but those texts to be interpreted
in accordance with shruti. purANa-s should not violate what is meant in the
vEda-s. Likewise, the other auxiliary literature is also meant to
supplement apaurushEya vEda, not to contradict them.

----svAmi sachchidAnEndra sarasvati in his vEdAnta prakriya pratyAbhiGYa
mentioned that shaN^kara refers to the author of vEdAnta sUtras as
bAdarAyaNa, while the identification of bAdarAyaNa with vyAsa was done by
vAchaspati mishra.

bhaskar :

shankara, unlike post shankara vyAkhyAnakAra-s, in his prasthAna trayi
bhAshya nowhere equates bAdarAyaNa with krishna dvaipAyana vyAsa...wherever
he mentions sUtrakAra it invariably follows the name of bAdarAyaNa.
Interestingly, shankara mentions the name of krishna dvaipAyana in sUtra
bhAshya (3-3-32) but does not say that he is sUtrakAra. In his prakaraNa
grantha upadEsha sAhasri, poem section,  bhagavadpAda mentions vyAsa's
name, but here also shankara does not say bAdarAyaNa is the *anvartha nAma*
for vyAs maharshi...So, Sri SacchidAnandEndra Saraswati has every valid
reason to argue like that.

Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
bhaskar