[Advaita-l] Discussion on pratitya-samutpada and Adwaita

[srikanta at nie.ac.in]

In his Email on the above topic,Sri.Amuthan,while replying to SriAnant
Bhagawat,s Email writes that Buddha showed indifference to any
metaphysical speculation,this is similar to Shankara,s attitude showing
indifference to matter on avidya.It is not indiference but,it cannot be
explained how avidya come into the jivatman.this avidya is
anadi(beginningless).The Budhist doesnot call this as beginningless,the
way a vedantin does.For the Mahayana Buddhist,Maya is without
substratum(adhara),like the mirage without the substratum.But,a vedantin
the mirage has its conservating principle in the form of sand,or the rope
for the illusionary appearance of the sanke,or a nacre for the appearance
of silver.There is not jnana after the realisation of pratitya-samutpada
for a madhyamaka.It is like blowing out a candle(nirvana).For the Hinayana
Buddhist,the realisation has to be found individually by himself.There is
no way the Pratitya-samutpada can be equated to vyavaharika or emperical
epistemological analysis.They are diagonally opposite.In
Gaudapadakarikas,Gaudapada empahtically states that the state the
vijnanavadi talks is near to the Brahman state,(samipyamuktam)
,but, this (the Brahman state) is to be realised only through the
Vedanta(vedanteshueva avagantavyah).
                                                 N.Srikanta.