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

[V Subrahmanian]

On Fri, Jul 21, 2017 at 10:20 PM, Aditya Kumar via Advaita-l <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

>
> Further, many scholars like P M Modi(not the minister) opine that
> Madhusudana clearly deviate from Shankara, quite boldly, which can be
> verified by reading his works like Gudarthadipika.
>

Madhusudana Saraswati, at the very first invocation to his Gudarthadipika
says:

भगवत्पादभाष्यार्थमालोच्यातिप्रयत्नतः । प्रायः प्रत्यक्षरं कुर्वे
गीतागूढार्थदीपिकाम् ॥ १

He has at the very outset said that he is lookig into the Śānkara bhāṣyam
with great effort shed light on almost each letter (word) of the Gita's
deep meaning.

When such is his commitment to Shankara's bhashya, it is only strange that
such allegations are made against MS.


oting P M Modi from the Introduction part of 'Siddhantabindu' English
translation :-"To illustrate briefly, in Advaitsiddhi, Madhusndana has at
various places differed from Sankaaracharya in his interpretation of the
Brahmasutras which he has quoted. He is the only exception from among the
Aeharyas of the Sankara Sehool of Vedanta, to differ from Sankara in this
manner."

> "But in the Gndharthadipika he goes further and rejeets the view of
> Sankara altogether whenever , he found that it was not in harmony with the
> Bhaktimarga of the Gita."
> Here the author is talking about the fact that Madhusudhana Saraswati
> considers Bhakti Marga as a legitimate 3rd marga other than Jnana and
> karma. However, Shankara and the mainstream Advaita does not consider
> Bhakti marga as a path in itself like Jnana and Karma. Considering this, it
> is perhaps not surprising to see this interpretation of Tat Tvam Asi.
>

Can any specific instances from the MS's commentary be shown to
substantiate the above claims?


> Further, if we compare Madhusudana Saraswati and/or Prakasananda Saraswati
> with the likes of Vachaspati Mishra, in terms of how they explain the
> unreality of the world, it is clear that there is some radical difference
> in the approach. Where Misra focuses solely on Maya/Ajnana and proceeds to
> elaborate it in line with Shankara's explanation of Maya, MS and PS
> (needlessly) attempt to explain the unreality of the world purely from a
> logical stand point. For instance, the world which we perceive is because
> Ajnana projects the world and hides our intrinsic nature. The dream
> examples are mere illustrations to explain the concept of maya/ajnana.
> But MS and PS try to take the examples/illustrations itself as the proof
> or stretch them beyond it's sphere of application(as originally intended by
> the authors) and try to arrive at unreality logically.


Shankara's bhashya-s are full of instances of  explaining
maya/avidya/unreality of the world on sound logical terns.  Those who have
not studied the bhashyas under the guidance of traditional Acharyas alone
make such claims as above.

regards
vs


> However, it is clear that whenever the logic fails or reaches it's limit,
> they inevitably rely on the Sruti statements of abheda nature. When
> eventually, you had to rely solely on sruti, what was the need to explain
> it solely from a logical point of view? In doing so, both these persons
> have stretched the illustrations beyond it's application and used the same
> as proof. This is same like various schools of Buddhists.
>