Perspectives

[Jaldhar H. Vyas]

On Tue, 25 Nov 1997, Charles Wikner wrote:

> While advaita analyses "tattvamasi" as three words (tat tvam asi), dvaita
> treats "tattvam" as a vyadhikara.na-tatpuru.sa-samaasa (i.e. "tat" is in
> some case relationship to "tvam"), giving "tasmin/tasya/tasmaat tvam asi",
> which translates as "Thou art in/of/from That".  This is quite correct and
> valid grammatical analysis, and good logic too -- but like all logic,

No it isn't.  It is out of context in the passage that vakya occurs in and
the Advaita polemic works take pains to show why on grammatical and
logical principles.

> it is
> dependent on the premises (dvaita in this case).  I suspect that you will
> find that dvaitins prize logic very highly -- but logic is of little value
> to an advaitin (except at the vyaavahaarika level perhaps): what he prizes
> is reason.

It's debatable whether logic and reason can be seperated but there's
plenty of the mundane variety of logic in Advaita Vedanta too even if
regrettably some people choose to ignore it.  Dvaita logic didn't develop
in a vacuum you know!

--
Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>