[Advaita-l] Patanjali Yoga Sutra. I.3

[Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian]

On Wed, May 6, 2009 at 2:31 AM, Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 6 May 2009, Bhaskar YR wrote:
>
>> Well, really I dont understand, why we, the followers of teachings of Sri
>> SSS, should bend our head in an inferiority complex and asking permission
>> to even mention his name & works  when our paramaguruji's contributions to
>> the advaita vedanta in quite commendable!!  Kindly go ahead and share your
>> knowledge on his works without any hesitation..Ofcourse, everyone in this
>> august forum would agree that 'advaita vedanta' is not the sole property
>> of
>> some socalled traditional flag holders..
>>
>
> Insofar as we discourage anything it is certain _topics_ which have been
> shown in the past to provide more heat than light.  But certainly not
> _people_ especially ones of the calibre of Swami Sachiddanandendra.
>
> What would be interesting is a comparison of Sankhya in the Gita to Sankhya
> in the karikas.  It seems to me that although similiar vocabulary is used,
> the philosophical implications are considerably different.

This is indeed the "traditional" viewpoint. It is also made very clear
by Sankara that he concentrates on the *differences* between
sankhya/yoga and vedaanta since there was a tendency to confuse these
even in his time. The point is - yes there are similarities - but
there are some fundamental differences. This is brought out clearly by
Sri Subbramayya - schooled by real advaitin masters such as
Mahaasannidhanam in his two volume book on the Dakshinamurti stotram.

The problem is that we see some random stuff coming from people, and
certain other people jumping on it and attributing it to the
"traditional" advaita - all the while blissfully unaware of the source
texts from Vidyaranya or Citsukha which already have made these
crystal clear. "Imagine a dead horse and flog it to death" is the way
I would put it.

In any case even if Gaudapada did write the work on Sankhya-karikas,
it does not mean much. After all Vacaspati Mishra - the advaitin - was
a sarva-tantra-svatantra who wrote authoritatively on all darshanas of
importance.

Rama

> One more thing.  Yes there is a commentary on Sankhyakarikas attributed to
> Gaudapada but it is an open question whether it is the same person as the
> Vedantic acharya.