[Advaita-l] Attack on Adi Sankara-by Dvaitins-what has been done to resolve this?

[Raghavendra Hebbalalu]

namaste,

I will give an anecdote about this from the life of
Sri DV Gundappa (DVG), a journalist-poet-philosopher
par excellence which he recalls in his
jnApaka-chitra-shAle  series (the volume in context
titled vaidika-dharma-saMpradAyastharu). DVG learnt
vedAnta from mahAmahopadhyAya shrI hAnagal virUpAkSha
shAstri (also the vidyAguru of HH shrI chandrashekhara
bhAratI). 

During his younger days, DVG was much distressed when
he heard of references from the perverse work that was
mentioned earlier in the mail thread. He also learnt
of a work that was written as a rejoinder (mm-bhedana)
to the same and was much interested in looking at it.

When he was looking for the book, he came across a
learned senior friend (shrI chandrashekhara shAstri -
a Samskrit scholar) who asked DVG what he was looking
for. When DVG told him, shrI-shAstrI said - "Do you
want to waste your time looking at such
kShudra-granthas? Isn't your time better spent looking
at bhAShyas and other such granthas?"

DVG learnt from it and did as he was told.

In my case, I was (and still occasionally get)
distressed on seeing that people indulge in such mud
slinging matches. After reading this anecdote and
those words of wisdom, I get on with my other things.

So, there were books written countering perverse
claims before, but if we start paying attention only
to such things, we will just feel anger and distress. 

As we say in kannaDa "durahankArakke udAsInavE maddu"
-can be translated as "Indifference is the right
medicine for ego bloats"(bad ego - literally). 

Anyway, this dvaita-advaita controversy will not get
resolved any time soon (hasn't it gone on since the
13th Century CE?). Many new people come to each school
and these fights continuously are renewed. And then,
we learn to move on from khaNDana-maNDana-daNDana
series to more important things.

My nANaka-dvayam. 

Best,
-rAghavendra

--- sivaramakrishnan muthuswamy <muthushiv at yahoo.com>
wrote:

> Thanks for the nice email Vidyashankarji.  I was
> also constantly hampered by this problem mainly from
> Hare Krishna's who has this lame website where all
> the dwaita criticisms are posted.  A rooki of that
> group basically uses those resources to attack
> Advaitins.  Those who respect Advaita but not well
> versed in logics encounter problem -emotional). 
> Week ones give up to them while strong ones shine.  
>  Advaitins periodically has been recording answers
> for the Dwaita criticisms eg., Advaita siddhi of
> Madhusudhana Saraswati (Ref:
> http://www.advaitasiddhi.org).  In my personal
> experience this approach not only helps us in
> equipping a deep understanding on our philosophy but
> also helps us to answer those criticisms on the spot
> - in an elegant fashion.  I also use contemporary
> examples in dealing the situation.   Please be
> familiar with Saiva Siddantha (old school - which is
> some what similar to dwaita philosophy)(the current
> version is mix of old school and
>  advaita concepts - in my understanding which is
> very small).   Its antiquity counteracts the
> Vaishnavas.  By bringing this fourth, we can
> basically argue that Vaishnava concept is not as
> unique as they thought as Saiva schools also has the
> similar approach (which is true in a way).  Both Sri
> Vaishnava as well as Saiva school traces their
> origin to Tantric schools while Advaitins purely
> argue on Vedic origin and logics (to some extent
> from Mahayana sect of buddist school).   If I come
> across more information on this subject I will post 
>   
>  
> Siva Muthuswamy
> 
> 
> 
>      
>
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