Antiquity of Advaita Vedanta (was Re: An Open Letter to All)

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

Ashish Chandra <ramkisno at HOTMAIL.COM> wrote:

>Srimad GaudapadAcharya is often pointed to as propounder of a prachanna
>bauddha (Buddhism in disguise) philosophy. Vidya posted another of his
>brilliant write-ups to show what the he (GaudapadAcharya) has said in his
>kArikas.

It has been a while since I wrote the post quoted by Ashish, and I have not
reviewed it myself recently. The Gaudapada Karikas constitute a very
difficult text. It is equally difficult to get a proper idea of the history
of Buddhist schools and their development. I daresay I have earlier said
things in youthful enthusiasm, that I may not necessarily agree with today,
because my own understanding of and questions about the text have evolved.
Readers, please use your individual judgments about it.

On a related note, I think one should be careful to distinguish between
philosophical similarities/differences and cultural ones. It would be wrong
to think that the Buddhist Sunyata and the Vedantic Brahman are the same
thing. But it would not be wrong to say that both the Buddhist monk and the
Vedantic monk share a large number of values in daily life, a large part of
this being drawn from certain uniquely Asian/Indian cultural traits. On that
basis, there is room for both cooperation and honorable disagreement.

Vidyasankar

--
bhava shankara deshikame sharaNam

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