Question on method of arriving at conclusions

[anand hudli]

On Fri, 5 Jul 1996, Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I have a question on the method of coming to conclusions in advaita. In my
> debate about the apaurusheyatva of the vedas with Shrisha Rao, he claimed that
> vedantins accept "what cannot be disproved beyond doubt as the truth". Does
> this method of analysis find acceptance among advaitins?
>
  Here is my $0.02 worth opinion.

  VidyaaraNya in his famous Panchadashii says satyatvaM baadharaahityaM
   which means that truth is that which  is not contradicted.

  The Vedaanta paribhaashhaa, a comprehensive manual on advaita
  epistemology and ontology, says:

  tatra smR^itivyaavR^itaM pramaatvaM
 anadhigataabaadhitaarthavishhayaka-jnaanatvaM

  Valid knowledge, which excludes recollection, has for its content a
  thing which is not already known and which is not contradicted
  (sublated).

  This is the definition of valid knowledge that is new, not previously
  known. This definition holds for the praatibhaasika, vyaavahaarika and
   paaramaarthika orders of existence. Everything that is illusory  is
  contradicted when the illusion is removed. So nothing in the illusory
  world is true. Everything in the vyaavahaarika world too is
  contradicted in the paaramaarthika state. What is never contradicted
  is the nondual Brahman alone. Brahman alone is the truth.

  Coming back to Shrisha's statement, it is unclear what "disproved
  beyond doubt" means. If it means "contradicted by some means to
  valid knowledge, such as perception, inference, shabda pramaaNa,
  comparison, etc.", then his definition is partially right.

  The main difference between the advaitic definition and the dvaita
  definition is as follows. When we say something is not contradicted,
  we can ask the question: "Until what time is it not contradicted?"
  The definition of noncontradictedness is the main difference between
  the advaita and dvaita definitions. According to advaita,
  noncontradictedness means "not contradicted at any time." If something
  is contradicted at some time or the other then it is not the truth.

 Let us look at what the dvaitins mean by reality.
 Vyasatirtha, one of the three luminaries of Dvaita, says in his magnum opus,
  the nyaayaamR^ita:
   trikAlasarvadeshIyanishhedhApratiyogitA sattochyate| meaning
   "not being the counter correlate of negation with respect to ALL
    three periods of time and space is reality." If something
   exists in *at least* one of the three periods of time, past, present and
  future, then it is regarded as real.

  We advaitins regard the world as vyavahArika satya. What does this
 mean? As long as BrahmasAkshhAtkAra or Brahman experience does not
 take place, the world is real. Once the pAramArthika satya or Brahman
 is experienced, the empirical world with all its diversity is seen as
 unreal. It is in this sense that we say the world, jagat  is mithyA.
 Thus what we call vyAvahArika satya is satya to the dvaitins.
 An advaitin who is yet to experience
 Brahman, and a dvaitin can have no argument about the status of the
 world. It is real! Further, from  viewpoint of Brahman too,
 the world is real. It is all Brahman! What is being denied is the
  reality of the duality in the world.
 The dvaitins do not admit anything such as the nondual state. So they
 argue that duality is eternal. There is no nondual reality. But then,
 they will have to give a *convincing* explanation of the statement
 from the bR^ihadAraNyaka upanishhad:
 yatra vA asya sarvamAtmaivAbhUt.h tatkena kaM jighret.h tatkena
 kaM pashyet.h |

 Where for whom all this has become the AtmA, who smells whom and with
 what? Who sees whom and with what?

 Anand