[Advaita-l] Re: Ishvara in advaita vEdAnta

[Amuthan]

namo nArAyaNAya!

dear shrI siddhArtha,

On 11/23/06, Annapureddy Siddhartha Reddy <annapureddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> You seem to claim that the apaurushEyatva of the vEda and the Ishvaratva of
> shrI rAma
> etc. are both equally articles of faith. This is not true for a vEdAntin (at
> least I
> do not see how at this point).

traditionally, advaitins have accepted all smRti-s which do not
contradict shruti as pramANa. so, as far as vedAntin-s are concerned,
a statement from the smRti-s is sufficient for proving the Ishvaratva
of shrI rAma or kRShNa.

you may also take a look at the series shrI Anand Hudli on references
to shrImad rAmAyaNam in the Rg veda (starting with
http://www.advaita-vedanta.org/articles/rig_vedic_ramayana/rig_vedic_ramayana-1.htm)

On 11/23/06, Annapureddy Siddhartha Reddy <annapureddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> The question that arises is, how do we know vyAsa was omniscient? For
> example,
> as I mentioned earlier, kumArila bhaTTA asks the Buddhists how they knew
> that the
> budhda was omniscient. And so also with shaN^kara regarding kapila.

the omniscience of vyAsa, vAlmIki etc. is known from the smRti-s which
are accepted as pramANa. (like 'vyAsAya viShNurUpAya
vyAsarUpAyaviShNave' etc.)

the bauddha's claim regarding the omniscience of buddha has neither
shruti nor smRti pramANa. that is sufficient for a vedAntin to reject
buddha's omniscience.

sha~Nkara rejects kapila's views since they contradict shruti. this is
only in keeping with the basic rule that a smRti cannot contradict
shruti.

the bottomline in all these cases is the acceptance of both shruti and
smRti as pramANa by vedAntin-s. whether it is possible to know through
means other than shAstra pramANa whether A can know the omniscience or
otherwise of B, i don't know.

On 11/23/06, Annapureddy Siddhartha Reddy <annapureddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> Or he could modify the mImAmsaka proof to accomodate this case,
> and I
> am wondering if this has been done by the tradition.

i don't know if this has been done. i'll leave it to the experts in
vedAnta to clarify whether advaitin-s accept the mImAmsaka's argument
against the possiblity of knowing if someone is omniscient or not. but
what i know for sure is that such an argument is not necessary to
prove the Ishvaratva of rAma or kRShNa since ample smRti pramANa-s
exist for proving that.

vAsudevaH sarvaM,
aparyAptAmRtaH.