[Advaita-l] How can the reality of brahman be proven?

[Bhaskar YR]

> I define brahman as existence. Therefore brahman must exist.

praNAms Sri Kalyan prabhuji
Hare Krishna

Yes, as you have rightly observed, to prove the existence of brahman with all those svarUpa lakshaNa-s the shruti is the pramANa hence tradition says :  brahman is vedAnta vedya...Interestingly if the 'is-ness' ( existence) is the strong factor to establish / prove brahman the same feature has been attributed to its kArya jagat as well :-) the brahman IS nirguNa / nirvishesha, jagat IS savishesha, brahman IS chetana, jagat IS jada etc.  In short, the nature of the IS-NESS of the brahman has been followed in the AkAsha etc.  In taitereeya shankara clarifies, the svarUpa of brahman i.e. IS-NESS ( existence) has followed in the creation starting from the AkAsha upto the stUla deha.  This is ( the existence)  the feature which is uniform between brahman (kAraNa) and jagat (kArya).  Anyway, not so tenable for the vedAntins who argue in favor of absolute  non-existence of jagat :-)

Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
bhaskar