[Advaita-l] Priority of Pramana based on Knowledge Domain

[rajaramvenk at gmail.com]

Sankara in his introduction to the gita talks about the Lord projecting the universe and creating marici, sanatana etc. The opinion that brahma did the srshti has been oft-repeated in traditional works. I'm aware of illustrative anecdotes in the puranas such as the story of the city of nine gates. But I'd like to know if there is any evidence in the works of sankara or gaudapada to reject the entire creation story in the puranas. 
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-----Original Message-----
From: V Subrahmanian <v.subrahmanian at gmail.com>
Sender: advaita-l-bounces at lists.advaita-vedanta.org
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2012 11:34:04 
To: A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta<advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>
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Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] Priority of Pramana based on Knowledge Domain

I would like to add this:

The intention of the purANa, which is part of the scripture, for Shankara
too relies on its statements even in the Brahmasutra bhashya for certain
things, is to enable the jiva-aspirant to go its way (the purANa's way) and
earn puNyam.  This puNyam will help him in getting into true brahmajijnAsA
in the future.  Things like panchAnga shravaNam are aimed at this in the
long run.  So even if one does not believe the stories as facts yet they
have a punya-generating value.  In any case in the final picture all these
things said in the puranas are going to be given up lock stock and barrel.
Positing Brahman as jagatkAraNam, even in the Brahmsutra 'janmAdyasya
yataH', and later negating its kAraNatva is a prakriyA well known as
adhyAropa - apavAda.  So what is posited as adhyAropa need not be, cannot
be, facts, by the very name it gets.  In the eyes of Vedanta as presented
by Shankara and Gaudapada it is impossible to ascertain how the world came
into being.  The accepting of a certain scheme to cater to the needs of
setting the jijnAsA process in motion is all that is done.  Within that
scheme a certain extent of logicality is sought to be established.

regards
subbu

On Mon, Sep 17, 2012 at 10:34 AM, Ramesh Krishnamurthy
<rkmurthy at gmail.com>wrote:

> On 14 September 2012 19:35, Rajaram Venkataramani <rajaramvenk at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > RV: Nice and clear. So, laukika pramanas show that humans evolved 200000
> > years ago. Does it negate the jnana created by smrti sastras that Brahma
> > created Svayambhuva Manu millions of years ago at the start of krta yuga?
>
> Response:
> I am not sure what is it that you are trying to get at. Surely you
> don't think of svayambhuva manu etc as historical facts, do you? And
> then you also have cases such as shiva-bhagavAn cutting off ganesha's
> head and replacing it with that of an elephant, the samudra-manthana,
> dakSha's sacrifice, etc. These conceptions can be interpreted in
> different ways and various meanings can be drawn out of them, from the
> superficial to the profound. But surely we aren't going to think of
> them as literal historical facts, are we? Our ancestors weren't
> morons.
>
> Most of us would have had some exposure to paurANika literature since
> childhood. At least, I never had any doubts on this count and at no
> point did I think of these conceptions as historical truths. By this I
> am not suggesting that they are "false", only that their truth value
> does not lie in their historicity.
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