[Advaita-l] Neha nAnAsti kimchana

Nagarjuna Siddhartha nagarjunasiddhartha at yahoo.com
Fri Jun 13 21:20:26 CDT 2003


Dear Srinivas, 
  
> I do not wish to speak on behalf of Jay, but I just
> want to correct your
> misunderstanding about Dvaita.
>  
> Dvaita say Brahmn is beyond logic. But we refute
> advaita by logic. Why ? Our
> objection is, though Brahmn is beyond logic, shrutis
> should be interpreted
> logically and using samanvya.  Why so ?  Because, to
> know/enquire about
> Brahmn (to whatever extent), one need shruti.  Such
> perception of shrutis
> themselves are based on first two pramaNa i.e 
> pratyksha and anumana.  Given
> such scenario, if you interpret shrutis in such a
> way that it opposes
> pratyksa and anumana ; what can I say, your
> interpretation suffers from
> 'ashrayasiddhi ' defect.


Please wait. Here I am making an objection. The
interpretation of "neha nAnAsti kimchana" given by Jay
 is clearly illogical. He was indeed opposing anumana.
For it is absolutely illogical to say that the kriya,
jnana, guNa etc of brahman are not different.  
  

> In previous several posts, we discussed about "ekam
> eva advitiiyam" . 
>  
> If you read this as "everything is Brahmn alone and
> no other essence" ; then
> we bring logic to correct you as  "atleast this
> statement has to be *real*
> in order to make sense what it is claiming. And if
> that is *real*,  we have
> one more real apart from Brahmn and that is self
> defeating of your reading
> in the first place." 


This is a traditional argument but it is incorrect. 
When you are saying "brahman is real" you are
presupposing Nescience. For the statement "brahman is
real" assumes two concepts "brahman" and "reality" and
says that they are the same. Here you find an instance
of tautology but such a tautology is inescapable in
language, for even if you say that "brahman has
attributes" there is tautology involved. Thus the
statement "brahman is real" is an inherently
tautological statement and thus has no real truth in
itself, but occurs only due to the need for
communication of an idea. To understand the idea
further, just keep in mind that brahman and reality
are synonymous in advaita and not two separate
concepts for anyone to proclaim in the true sense that
"brahman is real". Thus advaita is free from the
defect which you are trying to attribute to it.

There is actually only one essence and that is
brahman.  For when you say that the world is
absolutely dependant on brahman, then you are forced
to conclude that the world has no separate
self-nature. Thus by proclaiming the absolute
dependance of the world on brahman, you are loudly
proclaiming advaita.

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