[Advaita-l] Advaiti Response to this report?

[V Subrahmanian]

On Sun, Jan 8, 2012 at 7:47 PM, Venkatesh Murthy <vmurthy36 at gmail.com>wrote:

> Namaste
>
> Kindly see some comments from this list members are referred in this
> and Dvaita responses are given for debates -
>
> http://www.sumadhwaseva.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Defeat-of-Advaitins.pdf
>
> Vidyaranya Vs Akshobhya Tirtha
>

Recently at the Tumkur Seminar I met Shri G.R.Patil of Dharwad who had
authored the Kannada Book (2005) on the above debate.  He told me that
there have been some exchanges on the topic between Dvaita scholars and
himself and the latest is a response from the Swamiji of the Akshobhya
Mutt.  I have sought the copies of all such correspondence and once I get
them and have studied them shall make a report on the same.


> Appayya Dikshita Vs  Vijayeendra Tirtha
> Ananthakrishna Sastri Vs Satyadhyana Tirtha
> Karapatriswamy Vs Vidyamanya Tirtha
>
> ' A protected monument is an evidence which cannot be denied so easily.
> It is not strange on the part of an Advaitin to deny evidences when he
> is denying the visible world itself.'
>

What to say to those who hold the dream objects/events to be as real as
waking objects/events?


>
> 'Later Vidyamanyathirtha threw an open challenge. He announced that he
> would present one lack Rupees to whoever establishes Advaita. Where
> had your students or scholars or you had hidden at that time?'
>

Advaita had by then already been long established on unshakable terms by
the stalwarts of the tradition.  Scholars very well knew the 'outcome' of
such 'challenges'.  Let alone two opposing schools, even debates within the
school end up in situations coming close to exchanging blows in the run up
to the show of strength of the opposing viewpoints with no conclusion
emerging worth recording.  I have heard of such instances in Dvaita Mutts
on contentious issues like even Ekadashi thithi nirnaya.

As for the objection about 'sad-asad-vilakshana' it has to be remembered
that the Dvaita school need not look for any example outside its own school
than studying its own 'paratantra satya'.  For them the world and the jivas
are 'dependent realities' as distinct from the 'Independent reality,
'swatantra satya' Brahman.  In this two-level reality - स्वतन्त्रं
परतन्त्रं च द्विविधं तत्तवमिष्यते । (तत्तवसङ्ख्यान),  द्विविधं हि प्रमेयं
स्वतन्त्रं परतन्त्रं च । (न्यायसुधा) - scheme of theirs the former
(dependent reality) has no existence of its own except the borrowed
existence from the latter (Brahman).  No analogy for such an entity is apt
than the rope-snake/shell-silver type. स्वसत्ताशून्यत्वे सति
अन्यसत्ताधीनसत्ताकत्वं परतन्त्रस्य।

subrahmanian.v