[Advaita-l] Re: Pa~nchapAdikAchArya

[bhaskar.yr at in.abb.com]

praNAms Sri Ramakrishna BalasubramaNian prabhuji
Hare Krishna

RB prabhuji :

According to SSS all the changes from Sankara are wrong.

bhaskar :

>From which of the work of swamiji did you get the above statement
prabhuji??  as far as my knowledge goes Sri SSS never ever said that *ALL*
the changes which have taken place in post shankara period is wrong!!!
Infact, he himself, in one of his works, acknowledges the benefits he
gained from studying post shankara works.  Kindly note that SSS's main
objection with regard to following few issues, mainly :

(a) mUlAvidyA or bhAvarUpa avidyA (material cause for ajnAna)
(b) Indispensability of experience of Nirvikalpa samAdhi to realize advaita
paramArtha jnAna.
(c) jnAni's avidyA lEsha, whether jnAni has any injuctions (vidhi)
applicable to jnAni.
(d) whether jnAni required sustained *effort* to maintain his Atma jnAna??
(e) issue relates to sadyO mukti...

swamiji thinks that later commentators drastically differs from mUla
bhAshya while handling above points...He comprehensively dealt with all
these points in his main works & clearly shown where exactly
subcommentators have gone against shankara....

Now, prabhuji, it is your task to show us where swamiji is wrong &
subcommentators right in interpreting shankara's mUla bhAshya.  For that
main referential study material are:

(a) shankara's prasthAna trayi bhAshya in original
(b) commentaries from bhAmati & paNchapAdika vivaraNa prasthAna
(c) SSS's main works such as vEdAnta prakriya pratyabhignA, mUlAvidyA
nirAsa, shankara siddhAnta, shankara hrudaya, mAndUkya rahasya vivrutti,
shankara mahAmanana, paNchapAdikA prasthAna.

RB prabhuji:

That the bhaamatii and vivaraNa both have validity and are different
ways of explaining the same final result has been established beyond
any doubt by the great Citsukha. So there is no need to drag bhaamatii
and vivaraNa here.

bhaskar :

In that case, there is no need to drag SSS either here...because he too
advocates *advaita's final result* without any ambiguity (ofcourse, within
the traditional  line of shankara siddhAnta according to prasthAna
traya)....For that matter it is evident from bhagavadpAda himself that
there was no difference of opinion  in the ultimate siddhAnta of non
duality by that time...inspite of that shankara has taken the task of
writing the bhAshya why??  it is coz. he thought a systamatic & properly
channelized procedure is lacking in propagation of upanishadic *same*
siddhAnta.

Anyway, IMHO, as Sri Reddy prabhuji said, discussion about which saMpradAya
SSS belong to?? with whom he studied shankara bhAshya??  whether he has
taken saNyAsa within the traditional circle or not??   whethere he is
reincarnation of shankara or not??  whether he is jnAnanishTa shrOtrIya or
not ?? etc. etc. are all have only secondary importance since doctrinal
discrepancy is the main issue here l!!...for that matter which saMpradAya
does bhagavaan ramaNa belong to?? which saMpradAya do Sri Ramakrishna
paramahaMsa & nisargadatta maharaj belong to ??  what about modern day
advaitins like Sri Ravishankar, Dayananda saraswati, chimayananda etc.etc.
??  When we hearing their teachings do we ask them *first you tell me which
saMpradAya you are from??


First,  those who are vociferously questioing the credibility of SSS
interpretation of shankarabhAshya, should prove that SSS is flawed in his
interpretation by comparing the mUla bhAshya of shankara , vyAkhyAna kAra-s
interpretation of the same & SSS's objections to that interpretation & his
stand parallelly....I hope that would be useful for the neutral readers of
this list.

Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
bhaskar