[Advaita-l] The Enlightened Eminently Engage in Empirical Endeavors - Part 2

[V Subrahmanian]

Namaste Dear Siva,

The points you have made are quite interesting.

In the Sutra bhashya we find sentences like these:

 Shankara says in sUtra bhAshya that even anAshrami-s like raikva,
vAchaknavi *etc.* have got that
Atma vidyA.
.anAshramitvena vartamAnOpi vidyAyAmadhikriyate, kutaH??
taddrushteH, raikva, vAchaknavi *prabhruteenAM*, evaM bhutAnAmapi
brahmavitva shrutyupalabdheH...

While the exact reference of the Bhashya is not available now to me,
here is another
reference, with the key word 'prabhRti'which means 'etc.'.

In the bhashya for sutra 1.3.38 we have:

yeShAM punaH pUrvakRta-samskAravashaat vidura, dharmavyaadha
prabhRteenAm jnAnotpattiH...

On the strength of such statements where some Vedic and PurANic
persons have been specifically
named by Shankaracharya and the several unnamed are also indicated by
the word 'etc'.
there would be no defect in quoting from the Shruti or puraaNa-s
persons whom we know
for certain are Jnani-s.  There is no reason why only certain cases
who have been specifically
mentioned can be quoted by us and not the others.  I hope your concern
on this subject
has been addressed by me.  By this rule of 'etc.' I don't think that
any transgression of
the tradition is committed.

Best regards,
subrahmanian.v





On Wed, Mar 3, 2010 at 11:20 PM, Siva Senani Nori <sivasenani at yahoo.com>wrote:

> Dear Sri V Subrahmanian mahodaya
>
> While I don't contest your conclusion about jñAnis have a body, mind and
> intellect (BMI), I do want to question the Sruti examples quoted by you.
>
> There is a convention, carried over from pUrvamImAmsA that the persons
> mentioned in the Sruti are not historical persons and this convention is
> often invoked in discussions on whether women are eligible to study vedas.
> One possible answer to this is that Sri Sankara himself refers to some of
> these jñAnis; to that the reply would be that while the Bhagavadpada
> indeed refers to historical persons from Kapila (in the comment "we intend
> no disrespect to the great sage but Truth needs to be established") to
> Janaka (as a jñAni and in one rare case to himself as a brahmajñAni), the
> brahmajñAna of jnãnis among them is established through smriti granthas and
> the collective memory of the AchAryaparamparA not from a literal reading of
> Sruti. One example would be that of Trisanku who declares 'aham vrikshasya
> reriva ... vaajinIva svamritamasmi' but is not usually quoted as an example
> of a jñAni (at least to my knowledge); at the same time that he identified
>  himself with Brahman is agreed to by the AcharyapAda himself in
> earnestness without ridicule. So while referring to jñAnis based on the word
> of reverred predecessors in the paramparA is quite alright, a direct quote
> from Sruti as if it were a book of history is not correct, or at least not
> in line with the traditional thinking.
>
> jijñAsu
> Senani
>
>
>
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