[Advaita-l] Shankara authenticates Shiva as the son of Brahma

[D Gayatri]

Shri Venkatraghavanji


> If you are saying that because the neuter gender is used in the pronoun
> (एतत्), Siva cannot be referred to because he is male,


I am saying, if Indra thought that the companion of Uma who was
sarvajna Ishwara, was a male (being her *husband*), then he would not
have used neuter gender to refer to the sarvajna Ishwara. I also
invite you to check the translation of Swami Gambhirananda. He uses
the neutral word "God" everywhere in this context for Ishwara and does
not interpret it as Shiva. So your assumption that Ishwara here refers
to Shiva is no more than speculation.


and no masculine
> entity can be referred to, then by that logic, the Upanishad cannot be
> referring to ईश्वर as that Yaksha either - because the word ईश्वर is
> masculine in gender too.
>
> However, that interpretation would be wrong, because Shankara repeatedly
> says that the Yaksha is indeed ईश्वर only.

Let me point out that yaksha can be used both in neuter and masculine gender.

Having said that, consider the following -

1. ayam AtmA brahma - here Atman is masculine and brahman is neuter
but there is no problem with Atman referring to brahman.

2. Mohini is Vishnu - here Mohini is feminine and Vishnu is masculine,
but there is no problem with Mohini referring to Vishnu.

3. Brihannala is Arjuna - here Brihannala is (I think) feminine and
Arjuna is masculine, but there is no problem with Brihannala referring
to Vishnu

Hence there is no problem with the word yaksha referring to the word
Ishwara, even if the former is used in neuter gender.

Regards
Gayatri