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

[Sunil Bhattacharjya]

Quote
 
Please read the brahma-sUtra-bhAshya where it is clear that Sankara
refutes Sankhya and yoga. It does not matter what your perception of
these are, but as per Sankara there are problems with both.
 
Unquote
 
Your comments are hasty. If you have read my letter properly you would have realized that Sankhyakarika, if taken as a complete statement of Sankhya, calls for refutation.  Sankhya as it stands is a lower level text than the Vedanta and was criticised by Vedantin. Sankhya has been treated holistically by Svetasvatara upanishad and that does not call for refutation. Sankhya combined with Yoga  and with subsequent treatment of Brahman, as treated holistically by Lord Krishna, also does not invite refutation from Advaitin. To my knowledge Adi Sankaracharya did not criticize the Svetasvatara Upanishad nor the teaching of  the Bhagavad Gita. 
 
It is perfectly alright if you do not have time and inclination to read that Sankhyakarika could have lost a verse but people like Dr. S. Radhakrishnan found it  to be a matter of concern. It could also be that the verse was not deleted at the time of Adi Sankaracharya. The Brahmasutrabhashya itself says that the views are not of Badarayana alone and further as regards the Bhashya how are you absolutely certain that what we have today was written by Adi Sankaracharya and nobody has added anything to it or deleted anything from it.
 
Please also tell us when and from which last writer, according to you, that the traditional writing ended, so that all the subsequent writings can be relegated to non- traditional category or rather uncalled for. This statement will be certainly stop any new discussion.
 
You also said
 
Quote
 
All that meant was he could write a bhAshya on something without
necessarily agreeing with it.
 
Unquote
 
This is a fantastic statement and I must salute you for this.
 
skb
 
 

--- 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, 5:56 PM


On Wed, May 6, 2009 at 8:33 PM, Sunil Bhattacharjya
<sunil_bhattacharjya at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 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.

Please read the brahma-sUtra-bhAshya where it is clear that Sankara
refutes Sankhya and yoga. It does not matter what your perception of
these are, but as per Sankara there are problems with both.

> 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?

?!!! The tradition of commentaries and sub-commentaries, and
commentaries on those are quite common. The bottomline ios the subject
matter can be quite deep and can call for more commentaries. I am not
sure what you are trying to say.

> 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?

?!! All that meant was he could write a bhAshya on something without
necessarily agreeing with it.

Rma
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