Various vAda-s in advaita (was Re: A few questions)

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

I must heartily thank Ramakrishnan for bringing some points that I had
overlooked earlier to my attention.

On Wed, 29 Jan 1997, Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian wrote:

[...]

> >dr.shTi-sr.shTi vAda :-
> >This brings me to the last vAda, namely dr.shTi-sr.shTi vAda. This is the
> >view mainly of one author - prakASAnanda (ca. 16th century CE). This vAda
> >is described in prakASAnanda's *vedAnta-siddhAnta-muktAvalI*. This author
> >also wrote texts on SrIvidyA, such as *tArAbhakti-tarangiNI*. His view
>
> You seem to imply that none of the older teachers followed the
> dR^ishTi-sR^ishTi vAda. As I mentioned above that's not true.

I was aware that my original statement could be misleading, but didn't
bother to elaborate upon it. prakASAnanda sarasvatI and his commentator
themselves state that their particular dr.shTi-sr.shTi view was not
followed by any of the earlier teachers (as per a verse quoted in S. N.
Dasgupta's History of Indian Philosophy, vol. 3). I am unsure whether this
dr.shTi-sr.shTi view can be identified closely with eka-jIva vAda or not.

Based on the quotation you provide from Swami Abhinava Vidyatirtha's
teachings, I should modify my original statement about advaitins not
accepting dr.shTi-sr.shTi vAda. I guess I was wrong in drawing my
conclusions without checking up rigorously on the evidence. However, I
would still like to reiterate my earlier cautionary statement about
reading too much into the names of these vAdas. The same name seems to be
applied at different times and by different authors to philosophical
positions which emphasize different things and seem to draw different
conclusions.

More later...

Vidyasankar