[Advaita-l] [advaitin] Caricature of Advaita, Shankaracharya, etc. by the Gaudiya head
Kaushik Chevendra
chevendrakaushik at gmail.com
Fri Oct 28 10:14:00 EDT 2022
Namaste.
Sadly jaldhar sir, the objections of gaudiyas is never on the philosophy.
It's rather on the Padma Purana verse of shankara or some other purana.
Unlike the other vaishnava schools they offer no philosophy, prabhupada
commentary is filled with inconsistency. They claim to be of the madwa
sampradaya but hold Jiva as part of Brahman. And the world as non
different. At the same time the devata taratamya is thrown out of the
window. So they can't be madwas. It seems as though they are off shoots of
the vishitadvaita sampradaya. They hold golaka above vaikunta unlike all
the other vaishnava schools.
They have no proper philosophy which can be refuted. Their founder had high
regards for sridhara swamin who was a "mayavadi". To explain this they
resort to non sense.
On Fri, 28 Oct, 2022, 12:06 pm Jaldhar H. Vyas via Advaita-l, <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:
> On Tue, 18 Oct 2022, Aravinda Rao via Advaita-l wrote:
>
> > They are our younger brothers. We may smile at them.
>
> I don't know about the dynamics in your family but if my younger brother
> were to speak so insolently to me, he would not get a smile but a slap in
> the face. Or probably one of my elders would beat me to it.
>
> > They have done a great
> > job of aggressively creating awareness about Hinduism in more than 150
> > countries. They include the African nations.
>
> And if they spread slander about true dharma in the process what is the
> point of that? University professors also spread "awareness about
> Hinduism" in many countries. Sometimes it is out of genuine interest;
> sometimes there are sinister intentions. We are able to tell the
> difference in that case, why not in this one?
>
> > Those who read the Gita and
> > the Bhagavatam in whatever form will slowly come to Vedanta.
>
> And how pray tell do you think that will happen if nobody informs them
> about what Vedanta actually teaches?
>
> See in your minds eye you think you are engaging in some kind of high
> minded principles but to the outside observer it only looks like
> cowardice. If Advaita Vedanta is not worth defending or if purported
> followers are not able to articulate its tenets, then you are telling
> the world it is worthless. I doubt tnat was your intention.
>
> And it is so easy to counter Gaudiya arguments. If there is any familial
> analogy, it is the bastard son of Advaita Vedanta. Chaitanya himself was
> a dashanami sannyasi. He admired the Bhagavata tika by Shridhar Swami who
> was a "mayavadi" who pays respect to Shankaracharya in his mangala shlokas
> and actually was Shankaracharya of Puri. (The Bhagavata itself is replete
> with Advaita siddhanta as Shri Subrahmanianji has tirelessly pointed out.)
> Chaitanya was not much of a philosopher himself. Gaudiya philosophy is
> the product of his followers the six Vrindavan Goswamis and such critique
> of Vedanta as they did is just copypasted from Madhva sampradaya. Two
> generations after Chaitanya, the Maharaja of Jaipur held a conference of
> all the Vaishnava sampradayas and the Gaudiyas were belittled by the
> others for not having prasthana trayi bhashyas. Such works as they have
> now were only written after this in reaction by Baladeva and others. So
> the Gaudiyas for all their obsession with being "authorized" have very
> little claim to Vedic or Vaishnava foundations. It is the feelings of
> inferiority that result from this that drive this aggressive behaviour
> towards us. It's an effort to hide their true origins and convince the
> others "See we are genuine Vaishnavas too." Other sampradayas
> unfortunately engage in slander too but they atleast have some rational
> critique too. Name-calling is all ISKCON has. All you have to do to shut
> them up is to point this out.
>
> --
> Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>
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