[Advaita-l] Sources for some statements

[S Jayanarayanan]

--- Annapureddy Siddhartha Reddy <annapureddy at gmail.com> wrote:

> Namaste all,
>          Could someone point out the sources for the following
> statements:
> -- In this post by Anand Hudliji,
>
http://lists.advaita-vedanta.org/archives/advaita-l/1998-April/009003.html,
> he says "Shankara himself agrees that even a hundred shruti
> statements
> cannot make fire cold." Which work of Samkara records this?

The GItA Bhaashhya 18.66 (Swami Gambhirananda's translation):

"The validity of the Vedas holds good only with regard to matters
concerning the relation between ends and means of Agnihotra etc.,
which are not known through such valid means of knowledge as direct
perception; but not with regard to objects of direct perception etc.,
because the validity of the Vedas lies in revealing what is beyond
direct perception. Therefore it is not possible to imagine that the
idea of egoism with regard to the aggregate of body etc., arising
from an obviously of false knowledge, is a figurative notion. Surely,
even a hundred Vedic texts cannot become valid if they assert that
fire is cold or non-luminous! Should a Vedic text say that fire is
cold or non-luminous, even then one has to assume that the intended
meaning of the text is different, for otherwise (its) validity cannot
be maintained; but one should not assume its meaning in a way that
might contradict some other valid means of knowledge or contradict
its own statement."

This is mentioned in Mr. S.N. Sastri's valuable webpage at
http://geocities.com/snsastri/

> -- Also, while talking to a Vaishnava friend of mine, he was
> mentioning how
> Narayana is a proper name and not a title because of the "second"
> na used at
> the end  (in accordance with a grammatical rule of Panini). He also
> mentioned that Appaya Dikshita gave up on establishing the Siva
> Sarvottamatva because of this. Could someone provide more
> background on the
> grammatical issues involved and the source for Appaya Dikshita's
> statement?
> 

This has been discussed several times before. I would request your
friend to provide the exact reference of Appayya Dikshita's work
first.

Kartik

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