Apaurusheyatva

[Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian]

Vidya wrote:

[snip]

Thanks for your (as usual) informative post. I suddenly got a doubt whether the
latter day advaitis had a different opinion from gauDapaada in the matter of
shruti.

> "tattvamasi" but "atattvamasi". Thus, every statement which so much as hints
> at non-duality is tortured to mean something totally out of the context.
> The followers of rAmAnuja are more honest in this regard. They seek to
 reconcile
> statements of non-duality with statements which presuppose duality by means of
> other statements within the vedas.
>
> However, both these approaches completely
> neglect the technique of adhyAropa-apavAda (sublation of superimposition),
> which is the technique of the upanishads, even according to the paingala
> upanishad itself. It is very obvious that this technique is used in all the
> important upanishads, for example, in the taittirIya's description of five
> koSas, where each layer is initially taught as the reality, only to be
 sublated

This is an excellent point which you note here. I am familiar only with the
taittiriiya and mahaanaaraayaNa upanishhads. I have gone through the
brihadaaraNyaka and chaandogya upanishhads, but not in detail.

Apart from the point you make about adhyaaropa and apavaada being the implicit
technique, I'd like to note a small point about the taittiriiya upanishhad. In
the bhR^iguvalli finally bhR^igu finally notes:

haa (3) vuhaa (3) vuhaa (3) vu | - rough translation is surprise, surprise,
ahamannamahamannamahamannam.h | (I am the food, I am the food, I am the food)
ahamannaado (2) ahamannaado(2) ahamannaadaH |( I am the eater, ..)

The _way_ it's recited makes a huge difference, IMO. The first verse above
especially is quite pertinent. It'd chanted in a sama veda meter, though the
upanishhad is in the kR^ishhNa yajur veda (the difference in svara's is
indicated by the 2's and 3's, yajur veda usually has only udaatta etc).

The expression of great surprise. Further "ahamannaado etc" leaves no
room for any explanation, other than the advaitic one!

I really can't imagine how these verses can be twisted into a labored dvaitic
meaning, especially given the way it is chanted. OTOH, if "a"'s and "n"'s can
be introduced to get "a"tatvamasi etc, this may be quite easy also :-).

> they have to either dismiss Sruti because of its "real" contradictions, or
> claim that there are no contradictions at all. They prefer the second
> alternative, and claim to be the champions of Sruti. I don't think anybody has
> accepted their claims to be the only true interpreters of the Vedas.
>
> Finally, as far as the dvaita mailing list is concerned, I would be extremely
> wary of accepting any of the arguments offered there regarding
 "apaurusheyatva"
> as representing the official dvaita position on these issues. Shrisha Rao,
> one of the leading lights of this list, has conducted a rather frivolous
 debate
> on soc.religion.vaishnava with me, where he claimed that kumAriLa bhaTTa's
> school could not be called pUrva mImAm.sA, because it should really be called
> uttara mImAm.sA. Any scholar worth his name would inform you that uttara
> mImAm.sA is used interchangeably with vedAnta in the tradition, and that

Even I knew this :-). I remember reading that these names came about because the
ritualists emphasized the earlier parts and the vedantins the latter
(upanishhads) part. The "puurva mimaamsaka's" themselves called, their school
the miimaamsa school, and the "puurva" part was added later, am I correct?

Further, can you tell us how the dvaitins justify splitting vedic sentences in
all kinds of ways? I thought in case of any doubt the gaNapaaThi's would settle
the issue, i.e., the way they split vedic sentences is the correct way. Am I
wrong?

> kumAriLa bhaTTa was no vedAntin. It is not advisable to take seriously the

Ramakrishnan.
--
Two monks were arguing about a flag. One said, "The flag is moving." The other
said, "The wind is moving." The sixth patriarch happened to be passing by. He
told them, "Not the wind, not the flag; mind is moving." - The Gateless Gate