[Advaita-l] Rudra creates Brahmā and Viṣṇu

[jagannathan mahadevan]

On Aug 19, 2016, at 12:46 AM, D Gayatri via Advaita-l <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> 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.
> 
> 
>> 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. 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 your arguments and quotes are very inconsistent with the advaita principle. 
When it suits you, you invoke oneness of deities, and when it does not, you invoke supremacy of your deity (apparently Vishnu).

I dont think the intentions with which you argue have any purpose. 

All the while you kept claiming "shankara claimed so and so is supreme"..now when you are shown that Shankara also claimed something contrary to your view...you say he "would not have."

Like Kartik pointed out, you dont seem to be prepared to accept that all arguments and participants have to follow the same set of rules. 

In simple terms, the various deities are present to help us in our endeavour to gain chitta shuddhi and prepare our minds by proper worship and prayers to surrender. Even if you are worshipping "your Supreme" deity, you need Shraddha in doing so. Without Shraddha, your efforts are useless. In other words your efforts should be in developing that Shraddha in prayers to your deity and not necessarily canvassing around town to claim that shankara claims your deity's supremacy over other deities - you are no different than a proselytizer then.

Politely, it would be beneficial if you would withdraw from posting more on Vishnu is Supreme argument as I believe you started the pointless excercise. If not, at least I would request whoever else started the issue to reduce the level of focus on this - even Shankara would be amazed at the childish arguments of supremacy- I regularly listen to our Sringeri acharyas who are ultimate representation of Shankaran philosophy. Their focus and exhortation has always been to develop Shraddha and bhakthi in our endeavours including worship and prayers. 
I have never felt at any time there was any supremacy statements one way or other. Thus I take it that Shankara also had the same view and exhortation to his disciples of his time. There is no need for your interpretations (or interpolations) when we already have direct access to Shankara mathas and our gurus anugraha bhashanas.