[Advaita-l] Shankara on non-Advaitic mokSha/Brahman

[Rajaram Venkataramani]

>
>
>
>
> The seventh mantra of the mAnDUkya upanishad 'nAntaH
> prajnam......prapanchopashamam shAntam shivam advaitam ....sa AtmA sa
> vijneyaH' can be taken as a comprehensive definition of the Absolute,
> called turIya.
>

RV: Why cant the sixth and the seventh mantra be read together to refer to
the Ishwara? In the seventh mantra, "the essence of the knowledge of the
one self that into which the *world* is resolved, the *peaceful*, the *
benign*," etc. shows connection with the world, which is possible only in
the case of the Ishwara. As per advaita, nirguna brahman cannot be have any
connection with the world, cannot be called peaceful or distrubed (a state
of mind) and has none to be benign or hateful to.

>
>
> As both the Veda/shAstra and Ishwara are anAdi there is no problem if the
> shAstra defines Ishwara, for instance in the sixth mantra of the above
> upanishad.
>
RV: When maya itself is beyond definition, how can Ishwara be defined? Is
there shruti / smrti pramana to say that Ishwara can be defined by
shastras? The reason I ask this is if they dont claim, we cannot ascribe
that capability to them.