[Advaita-l] Question on Mayavada

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

> 1. The padma purana verses are bogus. I am okay to accept it if one
> is able to prove interpolation. I have heard better arguments from outside
> this forum to support this but none scholarly enough. The strongest one is
> that there are four recensions of Padma Purana andthe said verses appear
> only in the Bengali edition. But when I enquired I realized that such a
> statement was not based on evidence but anti-gaudiya sentiment. None of the
> members on this forum made that argument but tried to prove intterpolation
> on two counts. 
 
The reason I didn't make that argument is that it needs to be based on strong
manuscript evidence. To collect the amount of manuscript evidence needed is
not an easy task. To my knowledge, no one has really studied the original mss
of the padma purANa to any significant extent. 
 
Another problem is that even if one were to spend half a lifetime researching this
one obscure problem, only to find out that only the Bengali rescension had these
verses, there is nothing to prevent you from making the following argument. 
You could claim that the Bengali rescension is the original one and the other
versions, especially the ones from south India were altered to omit the said
verse, due to the influence of the Sankaracharyas in the south and a strong 
anti-gauDiya sentiment.
 
At the end of the day, only sentiment seems to rule the heads and hearts of
people who are interested in such issues. In my opinion, the reasons offered
by other list members as to why one should doubt these verses are strong
enough. I would suggest that if you are seriously interested in this, you should
take up the critical scholarly work of researching the padma purANa. Till such
time as you can produce a thesis on it, I would also suggest that you do not
expect advaita vedAntins to take the said verse(s) seriously.
 
At this stage, the suspicion about the origin and authenticity of the said verse(s)
is sufficient reason to drop this thread on this list. If you can prove that
the verse(s) are original to the padma purANa and were composed by the 
same vyAsa who wrote the vishNu purANa and the agni purANa and the others,
then a conversation about them can start AFTER examining your proof. 
 
Vidyasankar