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

[Bhaskar YR]

To Bhaskarji:-

Interestingly, Sachidananda saraswati swami also takes a harsh tone against Mandana Misra, a very respected Advaitin. In fact, many scholars opine that his clout was equal to that of Shankara himself and he was an authority on Advaita in his times.

praNAms Sri Aditya Kumar prabhuji
Hare Krishna

I have not read any of the work of Sri Mandana Misra nor I conclusively endorse the popular belief that maNdana is vArtikakAra Sri sureshwara, a direct disciple of bhagavatpAda.  Sri SSS somewhere observes that ( I reckon in the Kannada book ‘ vedAnta vichArada itihAsa’ ) maNdana mishra in his brahmasiddhi, at some places directly opposes shankara’s stand.  Sorry, I don’t remember those references either.  Sri SSS also notices that panchapAdikA vivaraNakAra’s popular theory i.e. mulAvidyA or bhAvarUpa avidyA (substantive, materialistic ignorance) is quite conspicuous by its absence in mandana’s brahmasiddhi but can remotely be traced in vAchaspati mishra’s bhAmati.   He (mandana)  also refutes the bhedAbhedavAdins’ theory that bheda darshana (perception of difference or manifoldness) is itself avidyA with the help of yukti-s.  And Sri SSS reckons that for bhAmati school of thought, maNdana’s brahmasiddhi is the source text.  Beyond this I don’t know anything about mandana and his works.  It is through SSS’s works only I am making these comments.  If you think  it is a fanciful observation by Sri SSS you can ignore it without attacking him personally.

Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
bhaskar