[Advaita-l] Adhyaropa-Apavada Nyaya.

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

> Pranams.
> With reference to the above topic,though Sri.Shankara has stated in his Bhashyas 
> that,"Adhyaropa-apavada nyayabhyam nishprapancam prapancyata"this part belongs 
> to the pedagogical tool of teaching Adwaita vedanta.We donot find that this 
> approach or method is adopted in any of the earlier Adwaitic texts,either in the 
> Upanishads ,Brahmasutras,or the prakarana granthas like Gaudapada 

It is a strong statement to say that adhyAropa-apavAda nyAya is not adopted
in the upanishads or brahmasUtras. This would lead a reader to believe that
adhyAropa-apavAda is an invention of Sankara bhagavatpAda.
 
On the contrary, in the gItAbhAshya, we find that Sankara bhagavatpAda is
quoting an earlier authority in the vedAnta tradition, because the adhyAropa
apavAda statement is attributed to one or more sampradAya-vit(s). It may 
not be gauDapAda who is described here as a sampradAya-vit. It could be
someone else, whose name and texts have now been lost/forgotten. Among
the texts available today, this statement is directly found in the prakaraNa
grantha called pancIkaraNa (not as a quotation). 
 
> karikas.Though we can understand from the Upanishads Bhashyas and the 
> Bhagawadgita bhashya of Sri.Shankara that this approach is adopted,it is not 
> explicitly stated in the Upanishads,Brahmasutras,or the Bhagawadgita.

This only means that it is implicitly present in the source texts and that what
the advaita AcAryas have done is to give an explicit form to the implicit
expression in them. "sarvendriya-guNa-AbhAsam sarvendriya-vivarjitam"
and "nirguNam guNabhotR ca" are straightforward expressions of adhyAropa
apavAda. Similarly, in the mUrtAmUrta brAhmaNa of the bRhadAraNyaka
upanishat, where the teaching of "neti, neti" is given, the text is again a
very straightforward expression of adhyAropa-apavAda - this section begins
with a statement that there are two forms of brahman, the mUrta (everything
other than vAyu and AkASa) and the amUrta (vAyu and AkASa) - this is the
adhyAropa. It ends with the AdeSa that brahman can only be described as
"neti, neti" - this is the apavAda.

Regards,
Vidyasankar