Sureshvara and Mandana Mishra

[Shrisha Rao]

Jaldhar Vyas wrote:

> First I do not think it implausible that a Purva Mimamsaka could have
> views on Maya.  As both Darshans deal with the interpretaion of Shruti
> there would naturally be some overlap. There are several examples of
> people who have written on Purva and Uttara Mimamsaka topics.  And we also
> have thinkers who wrote seperate works in different Darshans, a prime
> example being Vachaspati Mishra who has written authoritative works in
> Samkhya, Yoga, and Nyaya as well as Vedanta.  We know that Mandan Mishra
> wrote a work on sphotavada which isn't a view of Purva or Uttara Mimamsa.
> That doesn't automatically make him a Grammarian.

Actually, all scholars are grammarians, no matter what school they
belong to.  They have to be, otherwise their statements, in favor of
whatever school, would be ungrammatical.  Thus we have Patanjali's
bhAshhya on the Panini-sUtra-s, Amarasimha's kosha, etc., considered
authoritative by Vedantins, although their respective doctrines (Yoga
and Jaina) are not similarly regarded.

What is pertinent here is the fact that while Vedantins do study
mImAmsA, the reverse is not true.  This distinction is perhaps
hypothetical given that there are no pure-blooded mImAmsaka-s any
more, but if one were to exist, then he would not study Vedanta.  As
such, the fact that a given scholar has read or written on both
mImAmsA and Vedanta is indicative of the fact that he is a Vedantin,
not that he is a mImAmsaka.  One is not aware of any counter-example
to this rule.

> Secondly, is it established that Prakashanand Yati was a follower of
> Mandan Mishra?  He may have had similiar views but that doesn't
> neccessarily mean anything.  My understanding was he lived
> several centuries after the era of Mandan Mishra and Shankaracharya
> Perhaps he just "discovered" ideas which had been discussed and dealt with
> before but which he was unaware of? Not having read his work I can't say
> for sure.  (my understanding is that he is not in the mainstream of
> Advaita thought.)

I'm not sure what you're getting at here, but the issue is the
divergence of views between Sureshvara and Mandana Mishra;
Prakashananda's status in the Advaitic tradition, his "discovery,"
etc., don't really count either way in the main issue.

Regards,

Shrisha Rao

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