Advaita Vedanta and Buddhism

[Elizabeth Lisot]

In a message dated 7/24/1999 10:02:30 AM Central Daylight Time,
ramakris at EROLS.COM writes:

<< "Early Advaita Vedanta and Buddhism (The Mahayana context of the
 > Gaudapadiya-karika)" published by State University of New York
 Press, 1995,
 > by Richard King, professor of Religious Studies, Scotland.

 Sorry to disagree, but this is not a good book on this subject. The
 author misrepresents the gauDapAda kArikA-s and the shA.nkara bhAshhya
 on it in many places. A true characterization of both is achieved by
 Swami Satchidanandendra Sarawati in his "shuddha shA.nkara prakriyA
 bhAskara". I have also given a reference before to R. D. Karmarkars
 book which is a good book on this subject, although not as good as the
 one mentioned above.

 Rama
  >>
Namaste Rama,

Thank you for sharing your knowledge of this book and suggesting better
sources for questions concerning comparing these traditions. I am curious,
are you in disagreement with the premise that pre-Shankara Advaita Vedanta
adopted some ideologies from Buddhism? or do you simply feel that Dr. King
has mistranslated or mis-represented some aspects of the advaita texts?

Also would you kindly give the name of the publisher of Swami
Satchidanandendra Sarawati's book. (R. D. Karmarkars' book , 1953, is cited
in Dr. King's book as an example of an orthodox Vedantic commentary, but
lacking as a neutral investigation of the exchange between Buddhism and early
Advaita. Saraswati's book is not cited, does he investigate the relationship
between Mahayana Buddhism and the Gaudapadiya-karika? or simply translate and
comment on the latter text?)

Thank you for sharing your knowledge on this interesting topic,

Jai Ma,
Parvati