[Advaita-l] Re: Pa~nchapAdikAchArya

[Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian]

Dear Sri Venkat,

This will be my last mail on this topic.

On 10/25/06, venkata subramanian <venkat_advaita at yahoo.com> wrote:
>   In any case, is your contention that either Virupaksha Sastri or Swami Sivabhinava Narasimha Bharati were the brahmavits he approached? If they were, then they accepted the pa~ncapaadika and they were brahmavits anyway. So what is the harm in using the pa~ncapaadika? But actually that's not the situation, no? SSS considered all these people blind!
>
>   I dont think that to be a Brahmavit - one should accept Panchapadika.    It is a sub-commentary with its own logical explanations.  thats it.  we are placing logic beyond its status - making it an over rated virtue.  The Brahma Vidya that is conveyed in the Sruthi - that is the Tradition, which SSS received from his Gurus.   Whether any logical explanation (like whether Avidya is Bhava or Abhava etc) those should be secondary details.
>

This is like me saying that Z is an alphabet in English with you
countering that Z does not exist in Swahili. AllI said was that IF Sri
Narasimha Bharati and Sri Virupaksha Sastri were brahmavits, then
accepting the pa~ncapaadika did not stand against getting
brahma-j~naana. I never said that to be a brahmavit you nedd to accept
the pa~ncapaadikaa. So using the pa~ncapaadikaa is not a problem,
period! Whether it's a necessity was not covered by me at all. As a
matter of fact, Sri Candrashekhara Bhaarati Svaaminah has clearly and
explicitly stated that to gain brahma-j~naana you need not even study
the shAnkara bhAshyas, so where is the pa~ncapaadikaa then?!!

>   He has used Panchapaadika and he felt that that there is no need it and that the Bhashyas are self sufficient.  I dont think that if one were to accept only one's Guru upadesa,  - without considering any additional "aid", that should be a sacrilege.
>
>   > By the way, i fully agree with you that tradition is not got by book reading. But is it not a fact that this Swamigal has read in the traditional way under Gurus. he never book read himself....
>
> Actually this is repudiated directly by his direct disciple in a
> publication by the kaaryaalaya itself. Mr Gangolli claims that all
> these people did not understand shankara, and it was SSS (with some
> help from Krishnaswamy Iyer) who did it all by himself.
>
> Ramaji, you cannot consider such books and authors to make your view on that Swamigal.  i can say only so much on this.

SSSs own disciple, writes in a book published by SSSs own institution
that SSS gained knowledge by self-study. Yes, that's what I would
indeed choose to believe. Unless you have some other more convincing
source.

As far as I can see:

1. SSS repudiated Sri Narasimha Bharati and Virupaksha Sastri by
calling them blind men. So they were not his gurus.
2. SSS's disciple says that SSS gained brahma-j~naana by self-study of bhAshyas!

I have provided direct quotes in support of the above. It has been
countered, as far as I can see, by speculation only. I leave it to
unbiased readers to make conclusions for themselves.

Rama