brahman by birth or guna and karma

[Kim Poulsen]

>Now, it's quite obvious that the above is a praise to the Buddha, for
>Gaudapada plainly says that it is the _knowledge of the Buddha_ which is
>not in the teachings of the Buddha, which is merely saying that true
>knowledge of the Buddha is ineffable and therefore cannot be expressed in
>words, not that the teachings of the Buddha are false or that Buddha
>wasn't enlightened. Moreover, the first verse of the last chapter of the
>Karika is an invocation to "The greatest among the bipeds" and the entire
>fourth chapter is based upon Buddhist teachings. According to Richard King
>(and I agree with him), Gaudapada was trying to reconcile the teachings of
>the Buddha with the Upanishads.

>-Kartik

   And I agree whole-heartedly with these opinions. (It is encredible to me
that frequent attempts are being made to deny this strong relationship
between Gaudapada's 4th treatise and buddhist thought). Only do I feel
that the distinction between the knowledge of the Buddha and his
teaching points to the existence of an esoteric doctrine. This is strongly
supported by the arhat dialogues, taking place after the death of the
Buddha.
(viz. the allusions to a doctrine of the immutable, no doubt the akshara of
vedantic thought, taught to these arhats).

   You may all be interested in the fact that the transliterated text of
the kaarikaa is available from ftp://jaguar.cs.utah.edu/private/sanskrit
as "kaarikaa.itx". The devanagari output in .ps form will be finished
shortly. The present file "kaarikaa2.ps" is not the final version.


  Having said this, it seems that I must introduce myself to the
list. I'm 33, male, danish. A student of comparative religion with
special emphasis on advaita vedanta, buddhism and theosophy.
Especially their metaphysics, their general systems and
compatibilty.
   Presently I'm working on a book, improving my sanskrit and trying
to computerize the texts I need for research (so if anyone should
feel the urge to help transliterate and type in fx. a bhashya of
Shankara....................).

  In friendship,

Kim Poulsen
poulsen at dk-online.dk