[Advaita-l] ’upAsana' and 'bhakti' part 2

[Ramesh Krishnamurthy]

Namaste Satish,

On 15 March 2012 15:35, Satish Arigela <satisharigela at yahoo.com> wrote:
<< I see your point and I respect your view. However please see the
following. Shankara and your good self can combine and say "fire feels
cold"..on the authority of scriptures and tradition>>

While I am in broad agreement (not necessarily on all specifics) with
your views on upAsana and mantra-shAstra, I must say that you too are
not showing the "openness" that you accuse others on this list of
lacking.

The above statement by you is an example of this. Please note that NO
advaitin will make such a claim as "fire is cold" based on "scriptures
and tradition". Ironically, sha~Nkara specifically says in one of his
bhAShya-s that no amount of shAstra statements can make fire cold,
because the shAstra does not have independent jurisdiction (as a
pramANa) on matters that are within the domain of pratyaxa etc.

There is a sophisticated tradition of pramANa-shAstra that includes,
among other things, the rules for interpreting shAstra. Moreover, much
of this pramANa-shAstra comes from the pUrvamImAMsaka-s who are
mantravAdin-s par excellence.

In fact, a lot of your posts show a fundamental misunderstanding of
advaita-vedAnta and its essential principles.