[Advaita-l] Shankara authenticates Shiva

[V Subrahmanian]

On Thu, Aug 18, 2016 at 11:33 AM, D Gayatri via Advaita-l <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

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> 3. None of this section contradicts advaita-vedAnta. It is perfectly
> compatible with advaita-vedAnta because it says there is in reality
> only one purusha.
>

This message alone is relevant to Advaita Vedanta. The incidental
information of the persons involved in the conversation is irrelevant to
Advaita Vedanta. So, the claim that 'Shankara authenticates Shiva is
Brahma's son' merely because the Advaitic message is contained there, is
only mischievous and smacks of bigotry and nothing more. For Advaita, even
the Veda, the container of the vedantic truth, is mithyā; what then to say
the irrelevance of the MB instance.

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> A final point. There are instances, not only in the Mbh, but also in
> puranas, saying that visiting this sacred place or that sacred place,
> leads to this world or that world or even immortality and moksha.
> Given that the core of advaita-siddhAnta is that jnAna alone leads to
> moksha, all these instances should be taken as (again, I will quote
> the favorite argument of members here) *arthavAda*.
>

The above argument is invalid.  In the Br.up. 1.4.10 Shankara has clearly
said that the worship of devats, etc. is essential and conducive to the
generation of favourable mental state to the sadhana of advaita. Rudram is
directly favourable for the generation of Advaita jnana and hence Shankara
has authenticated it in the Jabala upanishad.

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