Reposting: Question on Incarnations

[Chandrashekaran Venkataraman]

Thanks for the response. But this sounds equally elusive to me. I am sorry,
it's my limited understanding.

Does this mean, for realised souls there was no incarnation of Vishnu? If
this is so what did the realised souls like Sadashiva Brah., Madhusudhana
Sar.
sing about and adore ? Did they perform this bhakti for the sake of normal
people to set an easy example ? Otherwise, bhakti inspite of non-dual
realisation
will amount to abhimAnA? Won't it?

So, after all what was "really" great in Sri Krishna's embodiment ? If He is
same as the one Universal Soul that is all of us (as one), who are those
"sAdhUs" and "dhushkr~ths" in that verse "parithrANAya sAdhUnAm" ? So are
there different levels of defining a True statement.. Otherwise Krishna's
declaration "sambhavAmi yugE yugE" and that whole verse and many more to
come,
will all amount to a lie in the ultimate sense. Won't it? Please clarify ...

Thanks and regards,
chandrasekaran.

-----Original Message-----
From: Sankaran Kartik Jayanarayanan [mailto:kartik at ECE.UTEXAS.EDU]
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2001 9:00 AM
To: ADVAITA-L at LISTS.ADVAITA-VEDANTA.ORG
Subject: Re: Reposting: Question on Incarnations


On Mon, 6 Aug 2001, Chandrashekaran Venkataraman wrote:

> Dear Members,
>    Can someone please respond to my earlier question? I basically would
> like to understand how advaita explains the various incarnations of Lord
> Vishnu.

By saying that the JIva-Ishvara duality is only at the conventional
(vyAvahArika) level of reality. Here, the Lord incarnates to "take good
care" of the living beings. In the ultimate (pAramArthika) level, they are
one.

> Also from the viewpoint of the Gita verse "parithrANAya sAdhUnAm"..
> Unfortunately
> I don't possess Sri Sankara's Gita Bhashya. JnAnESwari's commentary is
> somewhat elusive here. JnAnESwari explains the verse in dualistic
> terms and finally puts a statement saying "This can be understood only
> by samyag yOgins". If this is the case how are the common men like me
> to understand it...
>

Shankara's commentary on this verse is one line long. He simply says that
the Lord incarnates to protect the good people.

I thought I would go back two verses to see how Shankara comments on that.
Here, Shankara says that even though the Lord does not take birth, he
seems to do so by his inscrutable power of becoming.

>   Please respond.
>
>   Thanks in advance.
>   chandrasekaran.

Hope that helps,

Kartik