[Advaita-l] Is Badarayana same as Vyasa?

[Srinath Vedagarbha]

On Thu, Jul 19, 2018 at 3:15 AM V Subrahmanian <v.subrahmanian at gmail.com>
wrote:

>
>>
> No. It does not render the shruti terms of sutra, itihasa, etc.
> redundant.  The shruti passage is thus:
>
> स यथार्द्रैधाग्नेरभ्याहितात्पृथग्धूमा विनिश्चरन्त्येवं वा अरेऽस्य महतो
> भूतस्य निश्वसितमेतद्यदृग्वेदो यजुर्वेदः सामवेदोऽथर्वाङ्गिरस इतिहासः पुराणं
> विद्या उपनिषदः श्लोकाः सूत्राण्यनुव्याख्यानानि व्याख्यानान्यस्यैवैतानि
> निश्वसितानि ॥ १० ॥
>
> The shruti says that from Brahman, like smoke issuing forth from fire
> burning due to wet fuel, from Brahman, the Great Sat, the breath, rigveda,
> yajurveda, sama, atharva, itihasa, purana, vidya, upanishad, shloka, sutra,
> anuvyakhyana, vyakhyana which are all his breath alone.
>
> All of us agree that the shruti consisting of rig, yajus, sama, atharva is
> apaursheya and all other things like itihasa, purana are all paurusheya.
> Also, there is the term upanishad in that list. This is not the same as the
> popular upanishad, which is part of the veda, apaurusheya.  If  the popular
> meaning of itihasa, purana, sutra, etc. is taken, then the difference
> between paurusheya and apaurusheya stands nullified.
>

Why do you differentiate the list based on apourusheya vs. pourusheya?  The
context of quoted passage is about what happens at the time of creation and
how things are 're-instantitated' in the new kalpa.



> This is because, the above passage says:  all those items in that list
> have come from Brahman.
>

This can be still true when one consider all pourusheya texts are
pravahataH nitya and pravahI anitya. All pourushEya texts as such will be
there in all kalpas, but the content (pravahi) will be different. This is
the same idea when one says I bathe in the same river as I did yesterday.
The 'sameness' corresponds to river as pravaha, but the pravahi water is
changed (anitya).


> Hence alone Shankara gives the different meanings for itihasa, purana,
> etc. and thereby alone the shruti passage is correctly interpreted.
>

If it was said Shankara were to 'correctly' interpret other shruti passages
based on so called sUtra passages within the same apourusheya shruti; then
the possible akShEpa would be that very characteristics of actual
Brahma-Sutras texts called 'nirNayaka' is lost. The very notion of sUtra-s
as nyAya-prashthAna is meaningless. Along with it Shankara's own guru
Vyasa's intention of writing such sUtra is rendered useless. Also, along
with it Shankara's own effort of writing bhAshya (on such useless sUtras)
will render waste of effort.


> Else, itihasa, purana, sutra, etc. will have to be apaurusheya.  This is
> not the way all of us see these.
>

As said above, there is no need to divide the list of texts on those two
categories of apaurusheya vs. pourusheya.


>
> It is also wrong to say 'all itihasa, purana,  sutra, etc. are composed by
> those munis/rishis only by Brahman's blessings/ability'.  This is a weak
> argument.
>

This is strawman's argument. No one argued that way. Refuting an
non-existing argument is a flaw in the vAda you know.

/sv