[Advaita-l] Request to Translate the GUdhArthatattvAloka of BaccA JhA

[rajaramvenk at gmail.com]

After you complete your thesis on GAD, you should perhaps work on BhR and GAT. And get it reviewed by scholars - traditional and modern so that true advaita is understood. 

There are objective (flower seen by all) and subjective (flower seen by one) realities within relative realm, which do not go away as long as one is alive. One can reason about these as non-existent but that will be contradicted by direct perception even in a jnani. There are two contradictory views of jagat - sat and asat - at all times. As a result, the cause of jagat viz Maya cannot be determined as sat or asat either. We can of course reason that Maya, the cause is non-existent because Jagat, the effect is reasoned to be non-existent. We can withdraw the mind from objects but such a withdrawal cannot be continue for long in a living person - even a jnani. Therefore one has to concede that Maya is indispensable at least as long one is in vyavahara realm. This makes advaita impossible - as maya is a positive entity - but for one to whom maya is non-different from oneself.  Or one who is in the state of Vishnu (Ishwara). As we can't say Maya does not exist, we can't also say that Vishnu does not. We can't admit Vishnu is a positive entity and still talk of advaita unless we accept Vishnu is Brahman.

I think the position of Ishwara and Maya (as a result the nature of reality and Bhakti ) in advaita is misunderstood though Sridhara and Madhusudana took pains to make explicit what was implicit in Sankara's works. Be it 8th Ch or 15th Sankara defines Nirguna Brahman as Ishwara. Sri Subrahmanian, who I highly regard otherwise, has not explained why Nirupadhika Brahman or Turiya is defined Ishwara by Sankara or Gaudapada. Sankara only calls creation as a tatastha lakshana of brahman or ishwara, not that Ishwara himself is a tatastha lakshana. 


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-----Original Message-----
From: saha niranjan <sahaniranjan at yahoo.co.in>
Sender: advaita-l-bounces at lists.advaita-vedanta.org
Date: Mon, 8 Apr 2013 22:59:15 
To: A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta<advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>
Reply-To: A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta
	<advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>
Subject: [Advaita-l] Request to Translate the GUdhArthatattvAloka of BaccA
	JhA

Dear Scholars,

Namaste! It would be a great service to all of us if any body could take initiative to translate the GUdhArthatattvAloka of BaccA JhA (an early 20th century Varanasi NavyanaiyAyika),the only available sub-commenatry on the GItAgUdhArthadIpikA of MadhusUdana SarasvatI into English. Though this is immensely technical but very original sub-commentary on MS's, it has hardly been studied or even written about. To the best of knowledge no translation of it either in English or any other language has been made yet. This commenatry is available with MS's in ShrImadbhagavadgItA with eight commentaries , edited by VAsudev LakSmaN ShAstrI PaNsIkar (Chaukhamba Sanskrit Pratishthan, New Delhi, reprint, 1999).

With best rgs,
Niranjan Saha

--- On Sat, 6/4/13, V Subrahmanian <v.subrahmanian at gmail.com> wrote:

From: V Subrahmanian <v.subrahmanian at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] World is Flower in the Sky
To: "A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta" <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>
Date: Saturday, 6 April, 2013, 2:59 PM

On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 5:31 PM, vinayaka ns <brahmavadin at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
> It is true that antaryAmin is one only who has the  samashTi upAdhi. I was
> speaking from the vyAshTi aspect where multitude of jIvas can be accepted
> from the perspective of malina sattva pradhAna upAdhis. *prAyENa ajnaH iti
> prAjnaH*.
>

The scheme of the M.up. is best understood thus:

There is Only One Original Consciousness (OC) turiya.  This manifests
variously as six Reflected Consciousness (RC).  Of these six three are
vyaShTi (vishva, taijasa and prAjna) and three are samaShTi (viraT,
hiraNyagarbha and Ishwara).  Instead of talking of 'several vishvas, etc.'
the Upanishad finds it best to give one generic name ' vishva, etc.' for
this Turiya which alone is appearing as all these. Despite the vyaShTi and
samaShTi being upAdhi-s alone, the fact remains that it is all the same
Turiya, the nirupAdhika.  The dharma of the upAdhis, whether alpajna or
sarvajna, are not in the OC turiya; they are in the reflecting mediums only
which are, however, kAryam and mithyA.  We can say either 'OC is appearing
as all these' or 'the jIva who is really OC turiya is appearing as all
these'.  An aspirant jiva ideally contemplates thus: 'I, who am the
nirupAdhika turiya, alone appear as all these' .  In this contemplation all
the individual jIvas with all their upAdhis in all the three states and the
samaShTi-s along with their upAdhis are seen as appearances.  When the
contemplation attains fruition there is no longer eka-jIva/aspirant
construct but One Atman Alone realization.

There is nothing wrong in accepting several jiva-s in the vyavaharika but
it is good to realize that all this 'several' becomes absorbed into the One
and this happens 'through' *an* aspirant. This step is inevitable.
The brahmasutra vRtti of Sri Sadashivendra Saraswati for  3.2.37 has an
interesting observation:

'AkAshavat sarvagatashcha nityaH', 'nityaH sarvagataH shANuH' (BG 2.24)
ityaadiruktaH.  tasmAt advitIyasya brahmaNaH AvidyakaM sarvam-AdAya
shrutismRtibhyAm
sarvagatatvam siddham.

[The all-pervading nature of Atman is established in the scripture by
admitting an illusory all-ness.]

The idea is: 'all' itself is only an illusory manifestation of the One; One
cannot also be many.  Yet, by admitting such allness the Atman is taught to
be infinite.  'anekam' is 'ekam' and when it is seen that anekam has no
real existence apart from ekam, even the name 'ekam' no longer carries
weight.

subrahmanian.v





>
> --
> Best Wishes,
>
> Vinayaka
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