[Advaita-l] Pancikarana vs. Trivrtkarana (was Re: Dr Mani Dravid)

[Sundaresan, Vidyasankar (GE Infra, Water)]

>But it is
>really agonizing to see the derogatory exchanges between bhAmati &
vivaraNa
>Acharya-s that too in shankara bhagavatpAda's advaita sampradAya!! 

You don't need to look too far to see how derogatory exchanges can
happen between two camps in the same sampradAya. Why should
we think that human beings were any different five or ten centuries
ago?!! And if one or two authors of texts traded barbed comments,
it is unwarranted to paint all other later advaita AcAryas with the
same brush.

trivRtkaraNa is described in chAndogya upanishad, in the sadvidyA
section. Here, tejas, ApaH and annam are born out of advitIya sat.
These are three of the elements - agni, ApaH and pRthvI -
devatA ... ... tAsaM trivRtaM trivRtam ekaikAm akarot...

pancIkaraNa is described for all five elements, AkASa, vAyu, agni,
ApaH and pRthvi - pancAnAM bhUtAnAm ekaikaM dvidhA vibhajya
svArdha-bhAgaM vihAya ardhabhAgaM punaS caturdhA vibhajya
itareshu yojite pancIkaraNam. 

What are the implications and why is it necessary to investigate this?
Why would favoring one or the other help or hamper in brahmajijnAsA?

Well, to answer this with a rhetorical question, why does brahmasUtra
have a discussion of sRshTi-krama, starting with the viyad adhikaraNa?
Why does Sankara bhagavatpAda further spend a lot of discussion in the
bhAshya, instead of merely dismissing it all with one or two sentences?

Sri Bhattacharya made the correct observation - by knowing that the
constituent elements are ultimately the same across all objects and
by knowing that the elements all derive from the same source, it helps
one see the non-difference better. As bhagavatpAda concludes in this
section of the chAndogya bhAshya - satA vijnAtena sarvam idaM
vijnAtaM bhavati, tad ekasmin sati vijnAte sarvam idaM vijnAtaM
bhavatIti sUktam.

Regards,
Vidyasankar