[Advaita-l] Advaita Vedanta, religion, and science‏

[Bhadraiah Mallampalli]

Dear Shri Sunil Bhattacharya, 
 
>Lord Buddha has been misunderstood by many scholars. In Lord Buddha's
>time the brahmins were very ritualistic and they read the scriptures
>including the Vedas without caring to know the real meaning of
>the scriptures. 
 
In Vedic culture the sanyasis, individual householders and kings.. all three
of them compete equally for the scholarship. The best vedic scholar then
decides how to take the subject forward. 
 
Buddha was a great thinker,  no doubt. But as an outsider he had no
access to a vast mass of codified knowledge that is waiting to be
interpreted. Instead of becoming a king and demanding study of Vedas from
his Rajguru and getting down to interpreting them by himself he took the
round-about route which is least efficient. For a parallel, I come to think of
Bhishma who being a great warrior himself promised to serve his father's
progeny with another wife leading to degradation of dharma, however well
he himself craved for protection of dharma. Personally I would call it acolossal waste of talent. 
 
I wouldn't care much about later disagreements between Buddhists
because that is society's natural way of splintering any message for that
matter. (Entropy?) Despite Buddha's calls for dharma, the social institutions
got degraded which needed a cleanup by Sankara.
 
Can we likewise take this argument forward and say that Madhvacharya
propounded dvaita to cure the society from pseudo-advatists? Did
Ramanujacharya cure the society from pseudo-dualists and bring back
advaita in another form? Do we need one more dose now or in future? 
 
I would say yes to all questions, as long as it helps to to 1). preserve 
Shruti as it was handedover to us (no exception), 2). interpret & practice
as much as possible to promote dharma in society. 
 
Regards
Bhadraiah
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