[Advaita-l] Pa~nchapAdikAchArya

[Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian]

I have been super busy between tight work deadlines and my vedic
svaadhyaaya, but will take some time to reply:

1. Newtons law is not comparable to brahma-vidyaa. Brahmaa-vidyaa is
handed down from guru to disciple and needs a sampradaaya. If you
don't believe this, read shankara for yourself. Within a few random
pages you'll probably get to this.  A sampradaaya does not exist in a
temporal vacuum and restart magically after 1000+ years.

2. Yes, I was *mildly* sarcastic. But which part of "procession of
blind leading the blind" is not *dripping* with sarcasm, may I ask?
Vidyaaranya, citsukha, et. al - all blind. Thank you very much. And
that I may add, is not the sole instance of Swamijis sarcasm. I could
get many more examples. I just don't have the time or inclination to
type it all out.

3. Srimati Savitri pointed out my lack of expertise in general. I
humbly admit I have not read everything and in the original Sanskrit.
I also admit I am not the sharpest knife in the drawer. But I do
believe I have read enough and more, and enough sharpness, to question
Swamijis interpretation. But may I turn the question around and ask
how Swamijis 95 (or should that be more like 75) years of study trumps
1200 years of *combined* study by giants like citsukha, sriharsha,
vidyaaraNya, and madhusuudana sarasavati? Please ask yourself if you
have indeed read all these works by yourself and *independently*
evaluated Swamijis claims. If you have, then good for you. But let's
just not get into this "you are not a big enough sanksrit scholar or
you didn't study for 95 years" ad hominem arguments. It could all very
easily be turned around against Swamiji.

4. Let's try to picture this scenario. Sureshvara was this outstanding
disciple of shankara. I think anyone is going to agree with this. He
would have trained a few students at least - stands to reason.  As per
shankara, he belonged to a sampradaaya, and given the upanishads are
so ancient, let's say at least 1000 years of sampradaaya? So X ->
....... -> shankara -> Sureshvara -> disciples. Now comes
Padmapaadaachaarya and writes his book. If it is indeed completely
alien to shankaras sidhaanta and this venerable 1000 year old
tradition as per Swamiji and his disciples, would not Sureshvaras
disciples have pounced on Padmapaadas works and refuted it? Or was
Shankaras sampradaaya so tenuous as to be *single handedly* stopped by
a work on a *mere 4 suutras*? Absurd to the extreme!! Is it any
surprise Gangolli is resorting to conspiracy theories? If you believe
this is what happened, then let's just say my way of thinking and your
way of thinking on what is *reasonable* are just completely different.

5 BTW, believe it or not I have come a full circle. When Sri Subhanu
Saxena brought Swamiji to the notice of this list, I read about 30-40
books by Swamiji and was convinced by him. But I started seeing gaps
after a while and now am back to square one. But I believe reading
Swamijis works sharpened my understanding, though not in the way of
agreeing with him.

6. I encourage everyone to read a few of Swamijis works. He has a lot
of interesting things to say when he is not attacking previous
commentators.

Rama