[Advaita-l] Holenarsipur Swamiji's remarks and why even Avidya is not necessary for Advaita

[Venkatesh Murthy]

Namaste Sri Rajaram

Many people here will not agree your saying-

> we know Sankara better than
> he could have because we can learn all of his writings but at any any point
> in time, he only knew what he wrote until then but not after. So, his
> opinions are based on an incomplete knowledge of his own writings.
I have said Adi Sankara is the greatest Vedantin. There was not and
will not be another like him. Na Bhuto Na Bhavishyati. But I am trying
to say we can change his teachings for our time. In his time there was
requirement to teach in one way. We are still following Advaita. But
in our day we have to see there is a better way to teach the same
thing. Padmapada and Vachaspati Mishra taught Advaita in a different
way. Vidyaranya taught in different way. Mayavada was useful in
debates with Dvaitis, Visistadvaitis and others. It is highly negative
approach and fit to be used in debates. Today we are not arguing with
Dvaitis. We are getting married to them. Some Dvaiti Swami may say
something about Advaita but nobody cares.

What is the role of Mayavada now? It is like driving a military tank
to the office everyday. It is heavy. We cannot use it. We have to use
a small simple civilian vehicle.  It is pure Brahmavada. Brahman is
One and everything is Brahman.


On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 11:23 PM, Rajaram Venkataramani
<rajaramvenk at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 3:04 AM, Venkatesh Murthy <vmurthy36 at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> Namaste Sri Subrahmanian Sri Bhaskar and others
>>
>> You are saying the person saying Maya is not necessary for
>> understanding Advaita is a Asampradayavit. He is not following Sankara
>> Sampradaya.
>>
>> Who is Sampradayavit? Who is Asampradayavit? If you say Padmapada is
>> Sampradayavit I can say no. If you say Vachaspati Mishra is
>> Sampradayavit I can say no. Why? Because Padmapada is bringing new
>> concepts into Adi Sankara's teachings. Holenarsipur Swami has written
>> Padmapada brought in Positive Objective Avidya called as Bhava Rupa
>> Avidya but Adi Sankara never said that. He never said there is a
>> Avidya Cause for Adhyasa. He never said there is Anirvachaniya thing
>> like Sadasadvilakshana.
>>
>> Vachaspati Mishra brought in things from Mandana Mishra's teachings
>> into Adi Sankara's teachings. Mandana Mishra is not from Adi Sankara
>> Sampradaya but different.
>
>
> Rajaram: It is Friday evening but I am sober. I dont drink. So please take
> this seriously :) By definition, a Sankara sampradayavit should know what
> acharyas in the line of Sankara taught. Sankara knew what Gaudapada taught.
> But he did not know what the later day acharyas such as Vidyaranya taught.
> So, I am inclined to say that he is not a Sankara sampradayavit and will
> score lower than Padmapada and Vachaspati Misra. Agree? Also, we often
> think that Sankara knows his philosophy best and people like Sri
> Subrahmanian tend to quote the acharya to prove what Sankara said expecting
> others to take it seriously. But I argue that we know Sankara better than
> he could have because we can learn all of his writings but at any any point
> in time, he only knew what he wrote until then but not after. So, his
> opinions are based on an incomplete knowledge of his own writings.
>
> Please trust me that this is a serious post :) I have not concluded that
> you can write anything on Advaita List about the tradition and its glorious
> acharyas who dedicated their lives to uplift the masses.


-- 
Regards

-Venkatesh