[Advaita-l] apauruSheya ?

[Shrisha Rao]

On Fri, 27 Jan 2006, Ram Garib wrote:

> Unfortunately I did not have the opportunity to learn
> vedanta from a traditional teacher. Add to that my
> poor knowledge of Sanskrit and you get the picture. My

As unfortunately, your predicament is not unique, and is indeed something 
all of us share to a significant degree, having given up our svadharma in 
favor of pecuniary pursuits.

> understanding of vedanta is entirely based on the
> secondary sources like Hiriyanna, Dasgupta and esp.
> the course pack used at Benares Hindu University. The
> faculty of Indian Philosophy at BHU is out-and-out
> advaita and I would not be surprized if there are
> mistakes in presenting the position of Acharya Madhwa.

There may be; unfortunately there is a tendency these days among people of 
all stripes (and not just at BHU) to first form the conclusion, by faith 
or otherwise, and then retrofit the facts and reasoning to justify it. 
Real scholarship, of whatever persuasion, is always rare.

> I would indeed be grateful if you can point to some
> text in English on Madhwa's position that is
> considered authentic by dvaitins.

There are other works by the late B.N.K. Sharma, esp. his `Philosophy of 
Madhvacharya', that might be of interest.

Regards,

Shrisha Rao

> Ram Garib