Allan - the sniper

[Nanda Kumar]

>      That's another good question I don't have an answer to
>    but my guess would be that Sankara does not hold
>   "experience to be a superior pramana..." How could he
>    have said otherwise and still be the patron saint of
>    Advaita *Vedanta*?

C'mon, c'mon, Allan, why're you so anti-traditional and always sniping
at Shankara?

 Experience is something which is very personal and hence cannot be
validated by anybody other than the experiencer. A person claiming to be
'realized' may not be 'realized' at all! And whatever the (unrealized)
person teaches might actually do more harm than good. So from that
standpoint, no school of thought which wants to preserve the truth can
base itself upon experience alone. Experience is considered valid as
long as it is substantiated by the shruti, which is eternal and held to be
true. It's just logic.