[Advaita-l] Debunking Drishti-Srishti Vada and Eka Jiva Vada - part 1

[Aditya Kumar]

This is a multi part email. Sorry for repeatedly trying to send it across.
Part 1
Namaste Venkatraghavanji, (and Praveenji),
In your essay, you write :-"On the face of it, this is clinching evidence of ShankarAchArya's view that external objects must be real,..."
and again you write :-
"Presumably, the train of logic is as follows: If external objects were real, it would mean that they existed independantly of the seer, and consequently they existed independantly of (and importantly, in the absence of) the seer's perception."
I am surprised that you say that Advaitins vouch for reality of the world. The key difference here is the approach towards establishing the unreality of the world. Buddhism develops a thesis based on logic and inference. However, Vedanta establishes the unreality of the world due to Advaita Brahman! Thus, the world may retain it's objective nature and yet in paramarthika state, the world ceases. Allow me reiterate what Shankara says in BSB 2-2-29 : " It may be said that even the Vedantins acknowledge the unreality of the external world, since it is contradicted by the knowledge of Brahman, and this view is based on shruti. But the bauddhas do not accept the authority of the vedas( and hence their view/approach is flawed)"
Hence, your presumption that Shankara tries to establish reality of objects in BSB 2-2-28 is wrong! He is trying to establish the untenebility of subjective-idealism, but says world is unreal from paramarthika view only. 
This is advocated by all later Advaitins. All later Advaitins have refuted the view of perception=creation or Jiva creates the world when perception takes place. They have all attributed the creation to Ishwara. Ishwara here does not create world like a potter creating pots, but Ishwara is creator as in, everything is dependent on Ishwara for it's sustenance. I am writing this below in detail :-