[Advaita-l] Rudra creates Brahmā and Viṣṇu

[V Subrahmanian]

On Fri, Aug 19, 2016 at 12:16 PM, D Gayatri <dgayatrinov10 at gmail.com> wrote:

> >
> > These portions are directly contradicted by the MB itself, by Krishna
> > himself, by the verses cited from the BORI edition.
>
> Since Shankara quotes only the Vishnu supremacy portions in the Mbh,
> we may safely ignore the Shiva supremacy portions.
>

There is no rule that an entire text should be quoted by an Acharya to have
validity. Even if a text were not at all quoted, still that text does not
lose validity.

>
>
> > Also, given that we have the VSN, which is part of Mbh and commented
> upon by
> > Shankara with quotations replete from various sources to hold Hari-Hara
> > abheda and trimurti aikya and Shiva parama kāraṇam, etc. and the highest
> > Advaita also with innumerable upanishadic citations both in the prelude
> as
> > well as in the body of the VSN, we can take Shankara's Vedantic
> position as
> > this alone. And in the Prashna bhashya too Shankara holds Rudra to be
> > brahman.
>
>
> If one really were holding to the view of Hari-Hara aikya, then one
> would not have claimed that Shiva is the only one fit to be meditated
> upon.


The portion from the Harivamsha was highlighted solely to show that the
bloggers who claimed that 'only Vishnu is allowed by shastras to be the
upasya for vaidikas.'  You failed to note this.


> One who really holds the VSN bhashya as authentic would not have
> claimed that Vishnu lives under Shiva's grace or Krishna begged
> forgiveness from Shiva.


All the above were also to counter that vaishnava view which has no other
agenda than to show Shiva as inferior and Shankara as vaishnava. One can
see their urgency to compose 'vaishnava' commentaries on Rudram, etc  There
is also the campaign of those bloggers to malign the Acharyas of the
Advaita parampara by showing them as not followers of Shankara. You have
also lent support to them in other forums before by calling the Kanchi
Acharya as 'pseudo advaitin'. Why should advaitins take it lying down? To
show that all acharyas from
Veda Vyasa onwards are harihara abheda vadins would be the best way to free
oneself from sectarianism.