158. karanirjitapallavA

[Ravisankar Mayavaram]

158. karanirjitapallavA

SHE whose palms put the tender leaves to shame.

By "kara", here, palms of HER hands are indicated and by
"pallava", tender leaves with their qualities like redness,
smoothness and softness is indicated. It means, HER palms puts
the tender leaves to shame with the attributes of greater
softness and smoothness. That is why this name is relevant. It is
said that "vivAhashcha vivAdashcha samyoreva shobhate" (Marriage
and debates are befitting only among equals). Such an equality is
meant in this comparison.

AUM karanirjitapallavAyai namaH

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>From  a translation of shrI sha.nkara bhAshyaM of shrI lalitAtrishatI

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>From  Sat Nov 21 16:30:44 1998
Message-Id: <SAT.21.NOV.1998.163044.0500.>
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1998 16:30:44 -0500
Reply-To: ramakris at erols.com
To: List for advaita vedanta as taught by Shri Shankara
        <ADVAITA-L at TAMU.EDU>
From: Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian <ramakris at EROLS.COM>
Subject: Re: Indra / Net of Jewels
Comments: To: List for advaita vedanta as taught by Shri Shankara
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Subhanu Saxena wrote:

> > . The quote given by shubanu on "warp and woof of all" is COMPLETELY
> > different as it
> > insists on a substratum. A little thought will show the importance of
> > AdhishhTAna, which is missing in the previous illustration. See the
> > works of sarvaGYAtman for a fine discussion of this.
> >
>         I completely agree-my points 2 and 3 in my email were more about how
> the concepts of interconnectness are not unknown in Vedanta, though with a
> different standpoint as to what is the substratum.  With regards to my

I was quite sure that you know about the substratum, as you have been
taught by a student of Sri SaccidAnandendra Saraswati Swami. Not to
mention your excellent posts on the adhyAsa bhAshhya and various other
things. The problem is that there are quite a few people trying to make
some hodge-podge and call it advaita. In general the list has been doing
very well after Ravi's request to stick to source texts of sha.nkara, as
evidenced by the posts of Anand, Vidyasankar, yourself, etc. Due to some
other commitments, I have not posted anything based on source texts of
sha.nkara et al. I realize that in any list, there will certainly be
digressions, as in our day-to-day conversation. I took the opportunity
to point out the list policy because I am afraid that after sometime
digressions will again become the main stuff on the list. About a year
and a half back we were having quite a bit of such people on this list.

> point 3, I would be interested to hear if anyone has done a systematic
> research of Shankara's bhashyas and done a comparative study with current
> scientific thinking.  Everything I have come across so far seems to be
> lacking rigour, or sounds a little too "New Age".

I agree. IMO, comparisons bewteen scientific thinking and sha.nkara's
thinking can go only to a certain extent. This is because science is
based on observation and inference. The main pramANas, or may be the
only pramANas are observation (pratyaxa) and inference (anumAna).
However, for us, pratyaxa and anumAna are only two of the pramANas and
hold supreme only in their respective spheres. Suresvara's discussion on
this is classic. As far a brahman goes, shruti is the only completely
valid pramANa. Others may give some indication, but that's about it.

Nevertheless, an interesting book to read is "Mind, Matter and Quantum
Mechanics", by Henry Stapp, a professor of physics in U California,
Berkeley. The author tries to synthesize James' philosophy with QM. Some
of the chapters, especially on consciousness are very interesting. (If
you haven't already read )"What is Life?", with "Mind and Matter", by
Erwin Schrodinger and also "My view of life" by the same author talk
about Vedanta. These are very good and written by proper scientists.
Schrodinger does make some mistakes on VedAnta once in a while, but on
the whole his books are very refreshing and offer a new perspective.
Unfortunately however, usually such "synthesis" books are written by
some journalist who is equally ignorant of VedAnta and physics. Or it's
like Fritjof Capra, who is a scientist, but draws wrong analogies and
parallels to "prove" his personal convictions.

Rama

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>From ADVAITA-L at TAMU.EDU Sun Nov 22 21:07:34 1998
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Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1998 21:07:34 -0600
Reply-To: List for advaita vedanta as taught by Shri Shankara
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To: List for advaita vedanta as taught by Shri Shankara
        <ADVAITA-L at TAMU.EDU>
From: Ravisankar Mayavaram <msr at ISC.TAMU.EDU>
Subject: 159. kalpavallIsamabhujA
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159. kalpavallIsamabhujA

SHE whose arms are like kalpavallI. In the garden, nandana, like
divine trees, creepers also exist and they are well known. kalpa
means one that grants gifts. Hence, kalpavallI denotes a creeper
which can grant gifts. HER arms are like that kalpavallii in
giving gifts to HER devotees. Hence, SHE is called
kalpavalliisamabhujA. Here it is to be assumed that according to
poetic tradition, arms of a woman are compared to creepers.

In this name the aptness of the word "sama" suggests that
creepers also like living beings have power to grant the desires
of persons according to their past deeds, by the virtue of
awareness within.

Here are doubt can arise, "How can there be a comparison of arms
of paradevata with a creeper? But it can be answered by the
following argument. According to the kaThopaniShad verse 5-9,
"ekastatha sarvabhUta.ntarAtma rUpaM rUpaM pratirUpo babhuva"
which means: The one Self, in every created being becomes many of
HER forms in extension. Further, in bhagavad gItA verse 10-14,
"tattade vAvagachCha tvaM mama tejoMshasambavaM" which means "All
things are born from a part of my life", bhagavAn recalls HIS
presence in every substance as sat-chit-Ananda. It is also proper
that a limited Consciousness (HER image) is compared with
another limited Consciousness (creeper)

AUM kalpavalliisamabhujAyai namaH
======================
>From  a translation of shrI sha.nkara bhAshyam of shrI lalitA
trishatI

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"bhava shankara deshikame sharaNam"
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