[Advaita-l] Re: Buddhism Related Discussions

[Jaldhar H. Vyas]

On Wed, 16 Aug 2006, Lakshminarayana wrote:

>
> The term arhat is also extensively used by buddhists
> to refer to buddha or to his enlightened disciples.
>

Interesting.

> Is arhat used in jainism for any jain sage or only for
> mahAvIra and other tirthankaras? (I dont know the
> answer). If it is the latter, then the arhat in VP is
> more likely to refer to buddhists than to jains.
>

All Tirthankaras are Arhats but not all Arhats are Tirthankaras. 
Interestingly my neighbour, an educated Jain Shravaka (layman) whom I 
asked about this explained it as "An Arhat is a Jivanmukta."

In the Vishnupurana passage I quoted, Vishnu Bhagavan calls his followers 
Arhats not Himself.

>
>> For Nagarjuna shunyata is the ultimate.  For
>> Advaitins, there is
>> something beyond mithya--Brahman.
>
>
> I wonder what you mean by "ultimate" here but you are
> right in that Nagarjuna has no brahman-counterpart.
> Still for him, shUnyata is also shUnya. So emptiness
> is NOT really something "ultimate" like brahman.
>

I meant ultimate in the sense of last.  There is no metaphysical concept 
beyond this point.


> All buddhists are not kshaNika-vAdins. I dont remember
> buddha himself mentioning kshaNika-vAda anyhwhere.
> (Please correct me if I am wrong here). AFAIK, it is
> only vijnAnavAdin-s who are kshaNika-vAdins.
>
> Further - Which karika are you talking about here?
> Whether it is Nagarjuna's karika or gauDapAda's
> karika, I would be interested in knowing the context
> of your quotation and especially the verse.

Sorry, I am refering to Gaudapadacharyas Mandukya karikas 4.83-84. 
Neither Gaudapadacharya  nor actually Shankaracharya identify the 4 
incorrect theories but Anandagiri's tika says they refer to Samkhya, 
Charvaka, Jaina, and "Shunyavadi" (not specified further) Bauddhas.

-- 
Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>