[Advaita-l] Re: Vivekachudamani vs Bhashyas

[S Jayanarayanan]

--- Vidyasankar Sundaresan <svidyasankar at hotmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Combining responses to Bhaskar and Kartik ...
> 
> > >  But what swamiji  raising objection against VC here is *this 
> >brahmajnAna
> >happens only in nirvikalpa samAdhi* which is obviously not in line
> with
> >Shankara bhagavad pAda's PT purports.  If we check the Verse-339, it
> is
> >evident that author of VC holding *nirvikalpa samAdhi* very close to
> his
> >chest.
> 
> The only VC verse which uses the word nirvikalpa is no. 239, which
> does not 
> talk of nirvikalpa samAdhi.

There are several verses in the VC that speak of nirvikalpa samadhi.
This is what Bhaskar may have meant:

AruuDhashakterahamo vinAshaH .
kartunna shakya sahasApi paNDitaiH ..
ye nirvikalpAkhyasamAdhi nishchalAH .
tAnantarA.anantabhava hi vAsanAH .. 342..
"Even the learned cannot destroy the powerful ego, only those who
remain tranquil by nirvikalpa samAdhi can do so. For vAsanas
(tendencies) have existed for countless births."

> Rather, that verse says that brahman, the
> para 
> tattva, the supreme principle, is nirvikalpaka, i.e. beyond mental 
> constructions. Sankara says this in many places in his primary
> bhAshya-s.
> 
> As for verse 339, I am puzzled by your reference to nirvikalpa
> samAdhi here. 
> This verse only talks of sarvAtma-bhAva and AtmanishThA.

AFAIK, there are two "versions" of the VC. One version is published by
the Ramakrishna Math, which has several translations by Madhavananda,
Turiyananda, etc. The second is the English translation of the VC along
with HH Chandrashekhara Bharati's commentary. I am (and I think you
are) using the former whereas Bhaskar is probably using the latter. The
verse numbers in the two versions are a bit off. 

I feel the RK Math verse numbers are incorrect, as some shlokas (such
as #19) are assumed to have 3 lines (aren't all shlokas supposed to
have 2 or 4 lines?), whereas all the shlokas in the other version have
an even number of lines. 

> Taken as a whole, VC is not putting down study of scripture itself
> for the 
> ajnAnI. It puts down *mere* study of scripture bereft of
> Self-knowledge from 
> a tattvajna.
> 

I will respond to this part later, as I do not have the upadeshasAhasrI
with me now.

-Kartik

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