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[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

> > only the one who has realized the unitive knowledge of brahman who can say
> > jagan mithyA. Till that happens, the knowledge of the universe is not
>  sublated.
>
> No. I emphatically disagree. He has no choice to assume that jaagrat is real
> _and_ to give svapna an _equal_ status. This can be done with logic _alone_.
> There is no need to to talk about unitive knowledge. The unitive thread is
> obvious, it's the self. Existence of any other unitive knowledge is mere
> speculation. Taking the jaagrat alone is definitely not classical advaita.
>....
> verse II.34. Why is the reality of the state provisional? Simple, because
> knowledge of one state is contradicted in the other states (ex. jaagrat and
> svapna).
>
> In precisely this way jagat _is_ mithya. After all we say our dreams are
 unreal,
> by logic alone we can see that the jaagrat state is equivalent to the svapna
> state in all respects. So the jagat is mithya indeed. Or you should say the
> dreams are _completely_ real. It doesn't matter.

To answer the first point: Of course, one should not argue only on the basis
of the jAgrat state. This is not in keeping with classical advaita also.
However, it must be pointed out that the jAgrat and svapna states differ in
some crucial aspects. In today's svapna, I find myself jumping from an aeroplane
over the desert in Africa. This svapna experience is real enough, so long as
the svapna lasts. On waking up, I find myself in my room in Pasadena. However,
in tomorrow's svapna, I could as well dream about being in the Australian
outback, there is no guarantee that I will dream about being in Africa again.
And on waking up, I will find myself in the same room in Pasadena.

In other words, objects of the dream state are completely spun out of one's
own imagination, and are real so long as the svapna lasts. However, objects
of the jAgrat state seem to exist beyond one's own imagination. I can
legitimately claim that the parachute I used in today's svapna is an object
created totally out of my own imagination. But I cannot legitimately claim
that the computer I am using right now, is an object created out of my
imagination, or my own power to create. This computer here is perceived as
apart from and separate from me in the jAgrat state. And this perception is
reinforced by my seeing the computer in the same place every day I come into
this room.

This is what leads men to say that the dream is "unreal" and that the waking
state is "real". As such, it is as much of a fallacy to say that the dream
is "unreal" as it is to accord a naive "reality" to the waking state. The dream
is "real" so long as it lasts, the world perceived in the waking state is "real"
so long as the waking state lasts. The unitive thread is of course the self, but
not everybody seeks to understand this unitive thread, because the question
"What really is the self?" frightens most people. They are content in their
dehAtma-buddhi, which is one characteristic of avidyA.

It is only when the self is sought to be known, that the words "jagan mithyA"
can be understood properly. If one uses logic alone, without seeking to know
the self, jagan mithyA will always be misunderstood. This is in response to
the second point above.

Re: authorship of the prakaraNa granthas:

In one sense, you are right. The either-or approach taken by many modern
 scholars misleads them in evaluating Sankara's works. However, curiously
 enough,
upadeSasAhasrI is about the only prakaraNa work about which everybody agrees
that it is indeed Sankara's. Although uncompromising ajAti-vAda is described
in this work. These doubts are resolved not only in terms of the line of
philosophical positions taken, but also in an analysis of literary style,
preference for some terms and styles of sentence construction, etc. Of course,
such stylistic arguments can sometimes lead to wrong conclusions, if used
alone. But accepting the brahmasUtra bhAshya, and the principal upanishad
bhAshyas to be undisputedly Sankara's own works, some basic features stand out.
He prefers avidyA over mAyA, purely in terms of frequency of usage, roughly
by 3:1. He also does not differentiate between pariNAma and vivarta views of
causality, as much as later advaitins do. This is perfectly understandable,
because in the ultimate analysis, pariNAma and vivarta ideas are themselves
naive conceptions of causality, based upon a complete acceptance of bheda.
Sankara couldn't care less about bheda, when his goal is to explain abheda.
Later advaitins don't have that luxury. The incessant criticizing by dvaitins,
naiyyAyikas and others who grew progressively more sophisticated in their
argumentation, lead to diverse explanations of the terms avidyA, mAyA, mithyAtva
and anirvAcyatva. These later trends are taken to be absent in Sankara's
genuine works. Besides, the representatives of the living tradition themselves
accept that some works of later authors may have been mistakenly attributed to
Sankara, because his successors were also titled Sankaracharyas. Hence,
there is room for doubt. Another line of argument is that if a work was not
included in the comprehensive collection of Sankara's works that was published
in 1911 from the Vani Vilas Press, Srirangam, there is a possibility that it
may not be Sankara's. The rationale being that this collection is authoritative
as it comes from the Sringeri libraries, and if a work was genuinely Sankara's,
Sringeri would have known about it. However, I do not know if those who argue
on this basis have checked with Sringeri math for endorsement.

As far as the vivekacUDAmaNi is concerned, some noted Western scholars like
Paul Hacker think it is a genuine work. Others raise a doubt about it, but
don't attempt to resolve it one way or the other. Actually, it does not matter.
Whether the vivekacUDAmaNi is actually Sankara's own work or not, it is given
a high status by all advaitins. Any teaching found in this work is entirely
in keeping with the advaita tradition.

S. Vidyasankar

ps. The transliteration scheme I use is outlined at
 http://www.cco.caltech.edu/~vidya/advaita/transliteration.html. It is close to
 the ITRANS scheme, with
some minor variations for the sake of simplicity.