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

[Sunil Bhattacharjya]

Dear Mr. Ramakrishnan,
 
Sankhya as given in the Sankhyakarika does not talk about Brahman and naturally one may not be able to relate Sankhya of Sankhyakarika directly to Advaita. I remember to have quoted that the Sankhyasutra says that the existence of God cannot be proved. That is why Sankhya at its level of discussion does not bring in the concept of Brahman. It does not talk of Ishvara simply because it is not in the scope of Sankhya at the level of its discussion. Tell me where did Sankhya say that there is no Brahman? Sankhya never denied Ishvara. At that level of discussion it just does not tell you about Ishvara. At a higher level of discussion Lord Krishna does tell us that Sankhya and Yoga are one. Lord Krishna later on takes us to Vedanta. Svetasvatara Upanishad is basically an advanced Sankhya text and it clearly says that the concept of Brahman is given only to the most advanced students of Sankhya. The past stalwarts  and great Advaitins like Gaudapadacharya
 and Adi Sankaracharya did know this. 
 
You said as follows:
 
Quote
 
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.

Unquote
 
Do you mean to say that if Gaudapadacharya and Adi Sankaracharya had told the last word on Sankhya versus Advaita and explained everything that was necessary then all the subsequent explanations including those of Vidyaranya, Chitsukha, Vacaspati Misra, Sri Subbramayya, Mahaasannidhanam and several others are uncalled for and can  be called random staff?
 
Do you also mean to say that Gaudapada, who wrote a bhashya on the Sankhyakarika was  a proponent of a different type of Advaita philosophy? And do you  place the scholarship of Gaudapadacharya below that of Vacaspati Misra?
 
Sunil K. Bhattacharjya
 


--- On Wed, 5/6/09, Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian <rama.balasubramanian at gmail.com> wrote:


From: Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian <rama.balasubramanian at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] Patanjali Yoga Sutra. I.3
To: "A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta" <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>
Date: Wednesday, May 6, 2009, 4:56 AM


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.
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