Antiquity of advaita vedanta (was : an open letter to all)

[Anand Hudli]

On Wed, 21 Jun 2000 14:43:15 PDT, nanda chandran <vpcnk at HOTMAIL.COM> wrote:


>Anand, I've to hand it to you for getting the most irrelevant support for
>your theories.
>

 I don't have to reply to your nonsensical remarks wherein you basically
 question the integrity of virtually everyone in the advaita tradition
 starting from GauDapAda and Shankara, with no ryhme or reason.
 But I will try again.

>Incase the readers have missed it, the only objective of the Vaishnava is
>but to imply that GaudapAda and Shankara only taught the bhakti path -
>"NArAyana bestowing brahma vidhya to GaudapAda!". By this the Vaishnava is
>totally undermining the jnAna and Advaita tradition which swears by the
>attainment of liberation by knowledge alone.

 No that is not the point here. The point is that he accepts the fact
 GauDapAda salutes nArAyaNa, not the Buddha. There is nothing either
 implicit nor explicit about supremacy of bhakti or jnAna here.

>
>The greatest exponent of Advaita - ShankarAchArya - himself says that when
>he himself is the reality, whom is he to worship? JnAna and karma (which
>includes bhakti) are diametrically opposed and to endorse bhakti at a
>higher level in Advaita, is more harmful than it being prachanna bauddham,
>which atleast always taught that reality can be attained only by knowledge.
>
>Regarding Anandagiri :
>Incase you're not aware, Anandagiri, is not a "reliable" author according
to
>some sources. Else Shankara would've been a Tamil Brahmin and the matham at
>KAnchi would've been the original matham.

 This is the nonsensical questioning of integrity I was talking about
 above. The Anandagiri I was referring to is the one who has written
 commentaries on all the major upaniShad bhAShyas of Shankara, the
 gItAbhAShya of Shankara, and the sUtra-bhAShya too. Anandagiri's
 glosses are pretty standard in advaita. But then, what is the point
 in convincing one who thinks the whole of advaita tradition from
 GauDapAda and Shankara is lacking in integrity so as to cover
  up the Buddhist influence, so as to lie about key teachers in
 their line, etc.?

 Anand

--
bhava shankara deshikame sharaNam

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