[Advaita-l] Gaudapada and Madhusudhana

[Jaldhar H. Vyas]

On Fri, 29 Jul 2011, Srikanta Narayanaswami wrote:

> It is clear that the the writer of the above Email has not understood 
> the "Moksha-Sastra",which he has brought Academic Research to show that 
> Gaudapada has brought Bauddha concepts to prove the Vdantic point of 
> view.This is clearly absurd.Why shoudl gaudapada bring Bauddha concepts 
> to prove Vedanta?Can we say that Gaudapada is Nonsampradayic(NS) for 
> short,which is a an absurd hypothesis.

It's an open and shut case.  Gaudapadacharya uses terminology and 
imagery no other Advaitin uses (including the term buddha!) but which is 
very common in Madhyamaka Buddhist works.  Why did he do this?  Perhaps as 
was suggested his principle opposition was from Buddhists and he wanted to 
write in the language they would understand.  I don't think one needs to 
worry that it is a sign of being non-sampradayic.  The origin may be 
Buddhist but the use it is put to is thoroughly Vedantic.  Nowadays people 
use imagery from, say, quantum physics to illustrate Vedantic concepts. 
But they are still Advaitins not scientists right?

-- 
Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>