[Advaita-l] vedAntins at the time of shankara

[Bhaskar YR]

praNAms
Hare Krishna

In the bruhadaaraNyaka Upanishad mantra bhAshya (2-1-20) , bhagavatpAda observes that there is no disagreement among the followers of the vedAnta / Upanishads with regard to the 'ikyamatya' uniformity  of vedAnta siddhAnta pertaining to the identity of the jeevaatma and the paramAtma.  I am not giving the bhAshya vAkya Sanskrit transliteration here so that one can refer the originals in the books what they have.  And in the vilakshaNatvAdhikaraNa sUtra bhAshya again bhAshyakAra observes that all the siddhAnti-s of mOksha shAstra will advocate that correct knowledge alone would drives us to the mOksha or release from baNdhana.  Here in this adhikaraNa, bhAshyakAra  answering the sAnkhya-s pUrva paxa with regard to jagat kAraNa.

>From the above it is evident that if at all there was a school which propagates permanent bheda between jeevaatma and paramAtma ( like tattvavAda of today which also claims that they follow upanishadic teaching), bhAshyakAra would have not asserted with such a clarity that there was an unanimous agreement among vedAntins with regard to the jeeva-paramAtma ikya.  Nor he would have been declared that final mOksha is through jnana only if at all there would have been the existence of schools which advocates, prapatti, sharaNaagati, bhagavanta krupe, bhakti or something of that order as an alternative means to svarUpa jnana.

And Sri SSS, somewhere (vedAnta vichArada itihAsa ?? don't remember)  observes that whenever 'pradhAna malla' sAnkhya talks about pUrva paxa from the vedAnta school, it invariably talks about ONLY Advaita vedAntins since they presumed that Advaita alone is the vedAnta siddhAnta.  The only dualists that bhAshyakAra refers in his writings are the followers of other darshana-s or school of thought like the sAnkhya-s, the vaisheshika-s, the Buddhists, the jains and the pashupata-s.  The dvaita schools that he takes as his pUrpa paxi are all obviously avaidika mata-s.

And again, as said earlier, in the vAkyAnvayAdhikaraNa, bAdarAyaNa talks about three different advaitins namely ashmarAtya, audulOmi and kAshakrutsna.  Shankara while commenting on these Acharya-s too, any mentioning of any school other than Advaita is conspicuous  by its absence.  And among these three Advaita Acharya-s, shankara endorses the views expressed by kAshakrutsna and clarifies his (kAshakrutsna) views are in line with upanishadic siddhAnta.

While on the subject, It is noteworthy that in shanakara's stand : "methodology differs, goal is ONE..so go-ahead" green signal not there though all were vedAntic advaitins !!

Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
bhaskar