[Advaita-l] creationist And evolutionist

[Siva Senani Nori]

Raghavendra N Kalyan <kalyan7429 at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
   
  My understanding is that the various creation theories in Sruti are reconciled in advaita by the means that I already mentioned in the previous post. You might also want to look at Rig Veda 10.129 if you are really concerned that the "accidental creation" hypothesis is against Sruti. Note however, that all this does not have a bearing on evolution because evolution does not talk about creation in the first place - not even about the creation of life. Evolution presupposes life. Having said that, I think one can debate on whether the process of evolution is directed or an accident, but I am afraid, there is no definite conclusion on that right now. And I dont think things are going to change even if there is a conclusion either way.
   
  Raghavendraji praNAms
   
  Regarding srishTikramam: Along with the nAsadIyasUktam (the RV X.129 that you mentioned), we have purushasUktam, where quite a different process of creation is mentioned. To avoid these, I specifically referred to the krama given in the upanishads, given that they were reconciled by bAdarAyaNa in his sutras. Your contention in the previous post was that creation did not happen as the created jagat is mithyA. When the creation itself is mithyA, how does evolutionism matter? Obviously when we discuss evolutionism, we discuss from the (to borrow terminology from physics) non-absolute reference point of creation.
   
  If, as you said, evolution pre-supposes life, we need not discuss origin of life. I stand better informed about the vyapti of the term. Thank you. Even so, since thought does not recognise the boundaries of word-definitions, having pre-supposed life, I suspect one is drawn to speculate how life became? 
   
  I believe the big bang theory is the most acceptable among the current theories, and that it is held (I don't remeber where I picked this) that after the big bang, as a result of one of the millions of chemical reactions, life happened accidentally. I am not sure what is supposed to be the first molecule of life - an amino acid or the DNA or whatever. Whatever be it, it occured accidentally. 
   
  It is with this sequence that I have a problem, maybe not with evolution post creation of life. And does the nAsadIyasUktam give an answer? It only says: yo asya adhyaksha parame vyoman - the one who is the lord of all this [world] in high heaven - knows the origin of Creation or maybe not. 
   
  To me, since this mentions an adhyaksha in parame vyoman, it rules out an accident leading to life. At any rate, the accepted interpretation is that only the all knowing ISvara is capable of knowing the creation, not any other. (Sayana's concluding remark of the commentary on RV X.129 is: sarvaj~na ISvara eva tAm srishTim jAnIyAt na anyah iti arthah). 
   
  Finally if an accident caused the perceived world, what place does God have in the scheme of things?
   
  Regards
  Senani

		
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