[Advaita-l] Vaadiraaja Teertha's Yuktimallika - Advaita Criticism - Slokas 1-605 to 1-627

[Srinath Vedagarbha]

On Wed, Jun 28, 2017 at 3:56 AM, Venkatesh Murthy via Advaita-l <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

> Namaste
>
>
>

> There is no Anyonya Ashraya Dosha also
> because we are getting support for Gunas of Brahman being Mithya and
> Nirgunatva of Brahman from many Upanishad Vakyas like Kevalo Nirgunasca of
> Svetashvatara Upanishad.


The full shwEtAshwatara upanishad goes like :

"ekO dEvaha sarvabhootEshu gooDhaha sarvavyApee sarvabhootAntarAtmA
karmAdhyakshaha sarvabhootAdhivAsaha sAkshee chEtaa kEvalO nirguNascha ||"

So, in this context we can not take 'nirguNa' as attributeless, because the
upanishat has already listed several attributes such as Ekatva, Devatva,
GooDhatva, sarva-vyAptatva, antarAtmatva, karmAdhyakshtva, adhivAsatva,
sAkshee-tva, chEtanatva and Kevalatva and then says Brahman is NirguNa.

Consistent with this upanishat, Brahman is said to be "kEvala" and hence
His is nirguNa has to be interpreted as independent of prakti or prakrtika
guNa-s. In other words, Brahman is not made out of anything that belongs to
prakrti or its components. For this reason, Shrutis calls Him as NirguNa or
aprAkrita.

Many people think, nirguNa means nir-vishEsha (or attributeless ) but we
should remember that upanishat has already listed a host of
attributes before saying Brahman is nirguNa. Therefore 'nirguNa' must also
be interpreted consistent with the rest of the attributes that the
upanishad has given.

Once we cannot offered to deny guNa-s in Brahman, then the question becomes
to how to interpret nEha nAnAsti kiMchana vAkya. Dvaitins are saying all
above mentioend guNa-s in shwEtAshwatara are non-different from Brahman.
This is how the saManvaya between Katha and shwEtAshwatara without negating
any guNas in Brahman.


/sv