[Advaita-l] avadhUta GItA

[Ram Garib]

--- Aditya Varun Chadha <adichad at gmail.com> wrote:

> > 1) God created creation.
> > 2) God and creation simultaneously arise.
> > 3) There is neither any God nor any creation.
> >
> > The third step of ajativada is only for realized
> > saints and has been upheld by gaudapada. Teachings
> of
> > avadhuta gita are consistent with this last step.
> 
> Please explain step 3 above to bring out crisply the
> difference
> between ajAtivAda and buddhism's sUnyatA.
> 
> by step 3, is it meant that there is no DIFFERENCE
> between God and
> creation, or that neither exist independantly and
> there is only one
> underlying substrate? to the untrained eye it does
> seem to be saying
> that NOTHING exists, which is sUnyatA (buddhism)

Thanks Aditya for your response. Even for trained eyes
it may seem similar to shunyata!

Gaudapada infact extensively uses maadhyamika's
dialectics in vaitathya and alaatashanti prakaranas.
This should not be surprising. Development of
philosophical thought in India has been a classic
vindication of Hegel's theory of thesis, anti-thesis
and synthesis. Gaudapada came several centuries after
buddha and by this time, there had been so much
interaction and synthesis in buddhist and vedic
thoughts that it is sometimes difficult to distinguish
the two separately.

By the time of gaudapada, only madhyamika school of
buddhism was predominant in India.By his brilliant
karikas, nagarjuna had already demolished the hinayana
schools. Stage was set for gaudapada to
philosophically defeat buddhism just by meeting the
yogacharins on their own turf. His ajativada accepts
most of the madyamika arguments as such and differs
only on the conclusion. Whereas nagarjuna would say
that shunya is neither being, nor non being, nor
neither nor both; gaudapada would assert that that the
ultimate reality is absolute being. Ajativada holds
that there has never been any creation and the brahman
revels in itself without any vikaras.

Hope it makes clear.

Regards
Ram Garib

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