[Advaita-l] Re: Advaita-l Digest, Vol 1, Issue 32

[Jay Nelamangala]

Dear SriKrishna,

>I would think it is a matter of convenience,
>convention, and giving the opponent an idea of what is

No two philosophers agree in this world.  Why so?
It is because their interests differ.  prasthAna-traya can also be
looked at with a certain interest.   Accordingly,  a school of
thought develops around that interest.  This is how school after
school of thought has appeared in India.

Just to give you an example,  let us take Jaina and advaita.
All vedantic schools consider jaina as poorva-paksha including
advaita.

The Jaina sapta-bhangi vAda,  says there are seven ways of looking at
anything  based on different points-of-view (vivaksha)
1) is 2) is not 3) is and is not 4) is indescribable in terms of  (3)
5) is and is other than what is
6) is not and is other than what is not
7) is and is other than is and is not

This is called anEkAnta-vAda or syAt-vAda.

Advaita says it is absurd to think of the same thing as possessed of
such seven contradictory attributes,  Refer  jainAdhikaraNa. 

But a later thinker such as Sri Madhwa and his followers, look at both 
Jaina and advaita and ask,  how is the first four different from what is 
familiar to advaita as anirvachaneeyatA and sad-asad-vilakshaNa?