[Advaita-l] Re: yoga and vedanta

[bhaskar.yr at in.abb.com]

Dear Sri Bhaskar,

praNAms Sri Ramakrishnan prabhuji
Hare Krishna

RB prabhuji:

Sureshvara has differed from Shankara in a number of places, mainly in
the bR^ihad-vArtikam. A summary of these is given in R.
Balasubramanians study of Mandana Mishra (published by Chowkamba). If
I have the time, I'll try to get these references.

bhaskar :

Kindly do so prabhuji.  One interesting note worth to be mentioned here is
that my parama guruji Sri satchidaananda keeps the issue open with regard
to mandana's initiation into saNyAsa & traditional belief that he himself
became sureshwarAchArya..he cites very valid reasons to his doubts by
referring surEshwara's bruhad & taitirIya vArtika, naishkarmya siddhi with
that of maNdana's works such as brahma siddhi (?? ..not remember the
title)...

RB prabhuji:

Two things come to mind immediately 1) can only brahmins take up sannyaasa
as **means**
to realization? Shankara says yes, sureshvara says no.

bhaskar :

but does not shankara say in apashUdrAdhikaraNa bhAshya that even
non-brahmins are eligible for realization by giving the examples of vidhura
& dharmavyAdha?? I think shankara recommended *phala tyAga rUpa saNyAsa*
for all. Kindly, if possible, elaborate surEshwara's stand on this.

RB prabhuji:

2) regarding the reference to itihaasa and puraaNa in the bR^ihad
upanishad,
sha.nkara says they refer not to the standard itihaasas and puraa.nas,
but to the stories in the veda (by the way that happens to be the
orthodox pUrva  mImA.nsA position). Sureshvara says that they can
refer to the bhArata and other standard purANas.

bhaskar :

But shankara does quote from vishnu purANa in one or two places as a valid
pramANa is it not??  Again, kindly give me the references prabhuji, I too
have a look into it.

RB prabhuji:

Sri Satchidanandendra is well aware of these and many others and
claims that these are not of "great importance". But the point is if
Sureshvara did not consider it important, why would he bother to
disagree? Clearly what is important or not is in the eyes of the
beholder. The plain fact is that SUreshvara thought it was important
enough to disagree.

bhaskar :

Kindly let me know in which work swamiji discusses this issue...is it in
vEdAnta prakriya pratyabhigna prabhuji.

RB prabhuji:

Just a quick note. Followers of Sri Satchidanandendra (SS)  typically
claim that only SS "discovered" the discrepancies between authors
after Sureshvara. That's wholly untrue.

bhaskar :

may be you are true prabhuji...but swamiji himself does not claim that he
has *discovered* anything new...in his over 200 books of shankara
siddhAnta, as far as my knowledge goes...he never say he has introduced new
scheme of thoughts. His insistence to original source is obvious when later
commentators differs from the source text..

RB prabhuji:

Citsukha, way back in the 12th century has explained how many discrepancies
can be resolved. There is no single way of presenting advaita tattvam. The
presentation depends
on many conditions including place in history, etc. A notion that "it
is this way and nothing else" is itself a Western notion superimposed
on Shankara. Is it even believable that right after Sureshvara
attained mahaasamaadhi, the teachings of sha.nkara diasppeared, only
to be discovered only 1200 years later?!! It boggles the imagination,
to say the least.

bhaskar :

Again, in one of his works vEdAnta prakriya pratyabhigna, swamiji discusses
in detail about post shankara advaita Acharya-s including Acharya-s from
bhAmati & vivaraNa schools....he never claimed that his is the new
invention in advaita after surEshwara...he simply objectively analyses
original prasthAna trayi bhAshya of shankara with later commentaries based
on shankara bhAshya & says that they differ it from the source
material...ofcourse with abundant quotes from the source text.  When one
goes through all his works, I think, there is very little left for
imagination.

Rama

Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
bhaskar

PS :  As Sri Venkat prabhuji requested, I too would like to read your
article on Sri Swamiji's views prabhuji.  Kindly do it ASAP.