[Advaita-l] Advaita-l Digest, Vol 2, Issue 29

[Nagarjuna Siddhartha]

Dear Jay Nelamangala,
 
>Dvaita also says that Brahman is the Ultimate Reality.
>If advaita had stopped at saying Brahman is the Ultimate
>Reality, then I would agree with you.
 
I think you are mis-representing dvaita here. Dvaita does not believe in levels of reality like advaita. So where does the question of ultimate reality come in dvaita? I dont know the intricacies of dvaita, but I know that in dvaita, the empirical world is as real as brahman.

>Second Sutra is describing Brahman as Creator, Destructor, etc
>and the first sootra is demanding that you make such an
>Ultimate Brahman as the object of your enquiry.

The second sutra is not imposing any action on brahman. It is just passively stating that brahman is the cause. It does not mean that brahman is being treated as an agent of action here. For example, when we say "fire cooks food" or "the sun illuminates the earth", we are not proposing that fire and sun are active agents.
 
Thus the seond sutra is clearly advaitic in its content.

>But in advaita, The Creator is not the Ultimate Brahman
>and the Ultimate Brahman is not the object of any enquiry.

This is a mis-representation of advaita. The ultimate brahman being the eternal subject cannot be the object in any real sense. But any study of vedanta, pre-supposes Nescience(avidya) and therefore brahman is treated as the object of enquiry here, because Nescience creates the notions of subject and object. 


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