[Advaita-l] Bhagavan Ramanuja and Madhva haven't written any Bhashyam on the Upanishads

[sidha at omkarananda-ashram.org]

Bhagavan Ramanuja and Madhva haven't written any Bhashyam on the Upanishads

Dear Bhaskar ji,
Are you sure that the Upanishads that they quote are the one of the 12
principle Upanishads. I know some other Bhagavan Shri Krishna related
Upanishads (Krishnopanishad, Gopalottarataapini etc.) exist, which
advocate the philosophy of Dvaita and Vishishtadvaita and even
Dvaitadvaita. But I don't think that there is any commentary of Ramanuja
or Madhva or Nimbarka or Vallabha available on the 12 principle
Upanishads. I have asked many good scholars regarding this, and any such
commentary is unknown to them. If they exist they are totally unpublished
and unknown to the scholarly world at least here in North India. The 10
principle Upanishads have clear Advaita indications, and so do have the
Samhitas, in that case I think it is nearly impossible that any of the
above mentioned Acharyas has written any commentary on them. What would
they make out of phrases like "aham brahmaasmi" and "tat tvamasi", except
some weird interpretations like "brahmanah asmi iti brahmaasmi" or "tasya
tvamasi, tasmai tvamasi, tasmaat tvamasi and tasmin tvamasi". If this is
the case, their commentaries should be equally rejected.
However, I'm very much interested in knowing if there is a commentary by
any of these Acharyas available on the Upanishads. According to my
information, and I have all those books in my personal library,  Bhagavan
Ramanuja and Bhagavan Madhva have only written commentaries on the Gita
and Brahmasutra, since they must have argued that the quintessence of the
Upanishads is included in these two text, they must have felt no further
necessity to comment upon the Upanishads. There is no other book available
by Bhagavan Nimbarka than his Bhashyam on the Brahmasutra (if it can be
called a Bhashyam at all, it is just a samgraha, the Bhashya has in fact
been written by ShriShriNivasachary) and the Vedanta Dasha Shloka.
Similarly, apart from writing many Prakarana Granthas Bhagavan Vallabha
has only written commentaries on the Gita, BrahmaSutra and Bhagavatam.
However, I would like to tell you that I have seen a Bhashya by Ranga
Ramanuja on the Chandogya and I'm not sure but may be on some other
Upanishads. It is nearly 8 years since I saw it, so I can't really
remember, but that too is out of print.
Therefore I say that Shankara's Darshana is truly Shrauta Darshana, I
can't really say Vedic, but just Shrauta, very well based on the
Upanishads. But if we go a bit further back into the Vedas, we are bound
to differ a bit on some particular issues, mainly with the Mimamsakas, and
Shankara blindly follows the Mimamsakas in Vyavahaara (vyavahaare
bhaattanayah). However, the theory of Brahmaatmaikya comes out to be the
perfect theory also according to the Vedas.
Love and Pranams,
Siddhartha Krishna