Back in India

[Anand Hudli]

I am very happy to be back in India, finally! I am busy with
umpteen  things in settling down, as one might expect, but I
did find some time to go through my father's collections of
advaita texts. One book I found very useful is Swami SachchidA-
nandendra SarasvatI's (in Kannada) on the GauDapAda kArikAs. The
Swami makes a sound argument that the alAtashAnti prakaraNa of
GauDapAdAchArya puts forth the ajAtivAda, (briefly nothing ever
 is born) whereas the mAdhyamika doctrine emphasizes pratItya-samutpAda
 or the dependent arising of everything. As such, the ajAtivAda of
GauDapAda, though couched in the Buddhist terminology at several
places, is not a Buddhist work, not even a work with Buddhist leanings,
but rather a VedAntic work. Mere use of such terminology does not
imply a borrowing of Buddhist ideas at all, just as the use of
terms like "The Blessed Lord", in a GItA translation do not imply
a Christian influence on the same.

Anand