[Advaita-l] Traditional Scholarship vs Modern Pseudo-Intellectualism

[श्रीमल्ललितालालितः]

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On Sun, Nov 13, 2011 at 05:26, Omkar Deshpande <omkar_deshpande at yahoo.com>wrote:

> Unlike A, B thinks that each of the traditions he has studied have good
> rational arguments in favor of their respective interpretations, and it's
> impossible to say that one school got it right everywhere, and others
> didn't.


So, it comes that good study of B has led him to a state of lack of
conclusion. And it also comes that a neutral person as B either lacks
capacity to decide or can't understand those all texts. He has just read
them.
It also appears that B studied without any motive to acquire determination
according to one school and he didn't bother to reach it even if he was
able to understand them. Here he differs from traditional people.
Traditional people do not start study to reach status of B. They first
check subject, goal, etc. and if it suits them they go on. By Traditional I
mean those who study any of moxa-shAstram.
Q : Even sha~Nkara, bhAskararAya, etc. studied various shAstra-s, including
ala~NkAra, etc. which are not moxa-shAstra. They were neutral and they are
person B here.
A : True. They studied and reached determination in corresponding fields,
as you said. But, where ever two schools conflicted, they favored one. They
didn't say that all are correct. And, hence we see refutation of other
schools by them. Here they differ from your B.
For example, madhusUdana-sarasvatI wrote prasthAna-bheda, but he never said
that all schools are equally valid in every way or are totally rational.
Hence, he accepts them as sheSha of advaita-matam. Again he wrote
vedAntakalpalatikA where he mentions moxa and it's means from all schools
and refutes all except advaita-matam.
So, according to me B is totally different from them. And neutrality is not
unique to B as it is well practiced by traditional ones.

I agree with first part of your post, though. It is not essential to
remember every word of a text to be expert. Just turning few pages of same
or other books will do the same work.
And the scale suggested by rAjArAma will leave even jagadguru-s incompetent
as they can't remember everything in original. Not all veda-s are practiced
and remembered. Neither all bhAShya-s and TIkA-s. So, that's a wrong scale.