[Advaita-l] A 5th Century AD view of Vedanta (Some Comments)

[Venkatraghavan S]

Namaste,
Thanks for posting this. There is a chapter on Prof Hajime Nakamura's 'A
History of Early Vedanta Philosophy' which elaborately discusses this
chapter from the mAdhyamaka hRdaya, along with Bhavya's autocommentary on
the hRdaya,  tarkajvAla.

The professor's view is that the school presented is not the vedAnta of
gauDapAda and Sankara, but contains within it traces of a more ancient
school of puruShavAdins - the doctrine of puruSha, which is different from
more developed ideas appearing in advaita siddhAnta. He says "...there are,
in Bhavya's concept of Purusa, the remnants of a primitive, simple and
naive idea."

A reading of the translation presented in your other email does show some
critical differences with advaita.

Regards,
Venkatraghavan

On Wed, 26 Dec 2018, 07:45 Jaldhar H. Vyas via Advaita-l <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org wrote:

> * The translators opinion is that Bhavya has taken his understanding of
> Vedanta from Gaudapada acharya.  The date for Gaudapadacharya is usually
> taken from the statement of Shankaracharya that he is his paramaguru
> (Guru's Guru.)  The date for Shankaracharya is held to be 788-820 AD.  So
> Gaudapadacharya would be two generations before that, maybe circa 700-730
> AD.  However the scholarly estimate of Bhavya's date is 480-570 AD.  Even
> if we take the most recent end of that range (and it is more likely to be
> the earlier end), it is still long before.  Which would mean either
>
> 1. The date for Gaudapadacharya has to be moved back therefore the date
> for Shankaracharya does too.
>
> 2.  The date for Gaudapadacharya has to be moved backed and Shankaracharya
> cannot literally have him as paramaguru.  (Maybe the term is just used to
> mean a venerated elder in the parampara.)
>
> 3. Bhavyas source is not Gaudapadacharya.  The Mandukya karikas views seem
> similar only because they were established arguments and examples in the
> tradition.
>
> Personally I think 3 is more plausible.
>
> * It is clear that for Bhavya Vedanta means only Advaita Vedanta.
>
> * It seems that early Vedantins often prefered the term Purusha not
> Brahman.  Indeed other early authors often refer to Vedanta as
> Purushavada.  However is is also crystal clear that Brahman as we
> understand it is meant not the inert Purusha of Samkhya.  It would be
> interesting to read Bhavyas chapter on Samkhya (which I have not seen) to
> see if he grasps the difference.
>
> * The Purusha is described as Maheshvara.  In another place the highest
> place is described as Achyuta (i.e. Vishnu) Padam.  This shows that bhakti
> was a component of Vedanta from early times and those Vedantins were not
> sectarian.
>
> * The Vedantic practitioner is called a Yogin.  However according to the
> translator this might be an artifact from the Tibetan translation.  On the
> hand in shloka 8, the Purusha is said to possess the the yogic siddhis
> such as anima, mahima, laghima etc.
>
> --
> Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>
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