[Advaita-l] Re: Swami Sachchidanandendra Sarasvati

[Annapureddy Siddhartha Reddy]

praNAm.h shrI Rama,

But SSS dismisses the entire writings of the last 1200 years as wrong.
> In fact we would be hard-pressed to find him giving any
> credence/praise to any one, The only instance I know is he grudingly
> praises citsukha in his vedaanta-prakriyaa-pratyabij~naa.

He questions
> the very fundamental statements of vidyaaraNya, et. al, and so that
> affects EVERYTHING. In essence he claims that they are COMPLETELY
> wrong and that it is NOT possible to attain brahma-j~naana by
> understanding vedaanta through these works such as pa~ncadashii.
> That's a big difference, and a loose comparsion to Sureshvara is not
> going to help.


As you rightly pointed out, ultimately it's the writings of the svAmijis
that matter, and not their status as incarnations etc. Thus, statements of
the sort --  "A's observations contradict B who is renowned. Hence A is
wrong." -- do not hold any philosophical significance (For example, the
instance in the brahma sUtra bhAShya 2.1.1, where shaN^kara does not accept
the authoritativeness of kapila, when the claim rests only on kapila being
renowned as an omniscient sage). But we could try to compare A's and B's
observations vis-a-vis shaN^kara and see who is more faithful to shaN^kara.
It would be great if we could identify a few differences and focus on
resolving those issues.

I have been reading the method of the vEdAnta (by Alston), and the point
svAmi sachchidAnandEndra sarasvati seems to be making is that many of the
advaitins have been off in the "right interpretation" of the upaniShats, and
not necessarily in the conclusions they draw.

It's a recognized fact that there are many theories amongst advaita vEdAnta
itself (i.e., all of which accept the three cardinal principles brahma
satyaM, jaganmithyA, jIvObrahmaiva nAparaH, and yet differ in the details,
for example, the bhAmati and the vivaraNa sub-schools). And appaya dIkShita
explained it using the analogy of "pointing out the arundhati star". Thus,
we could examine if the sub-commentaries were filling gaps where shaN^kara
has not explicitly taken a position, and hence (the later sub-commentators)
came up with different ways to explain the same thing. Or if the
sub-commentators misrepresented shaN^kara's position (for whatever reasons).


One example that we could discuss is about the nature of name and form --
whether they are imagined through metaphysical Ignorance or whether they
constitute the Ignorance itself (svAmi sachchidAnandEndra sarasvati takes
the former position, while the vivaraNa according to him takes the later
position).

Thanks.

A.Siddhartha.