[Advaita-l] Re: itihAsa purANa in the bR^ihadAraNyaka

[Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian]

On 7/25/06, Annapureddy Siddhartha Reddy <annapureddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> namastE Ramaji,
>          Please refer to this old post by Vidyasankarji on the
> occurrence of "itihAsa purANah" in the ChAMDOgya upaniShat.h:
> http://www.hindunet.org/alt_hindu/1995_Jan/msg00017.html
>
> Here shaN^kara takes it to mean mahAbhArata and some other purANa. Is
> there any reason why shaN^kara doesn't identify the reference in the
> bR^ihadAraNyaka similarly? Thanks.

Shankaras comment on this passage is brief. He merely repeats the
passage regarding the Rg , yajur and says these are indeed names.
Finally he repeats the last words naamavai-etat. His only comment here
is that meditating on name as brahman is similar to thinking that the
image is ViShNu. To wit, it is convenient for concentrating/upaasana,
but not the reality.

Shankara makes no comment regarding the rest - itihaasa, puraaNa, etc.
So he does not identify the itihaasa with the bhaarata in the
Chaandogya. I have already said that he explicitly interprets itihhasa
and puraaNa as the the stories in the veda itself. I have also already
pointed out that Sureshvara disputes him on this as durukta. What more
justification is needed to think that Shankara did not identify the
bhaarata as the itihaasa in the Brhad? In fact, there is no
justification for thinking that Shankara interpreted itihaasa as the
bhArata, etc., in the Chhandogya.

Not to be rude, but I have been noticing that many people don't seem
to be reading my mails before replying. Is my writing style extremely
obscure and/or tedious? A serious question, since I am constantly
trying to improve my writing style.

Rama