[Advaita-l] 'Ishwaro'ham' and 'IshwarabhAvaH'

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

Rajaram, I don't know where to start, so here are a few questions for you to ponder over.
 

> > RV: I'm explaining two cases where a pot is eternal. In one case, there is
> an ideal pot and other pots are made similar to that. In the second case,
> there is no ideal pot but a collection of objects that share certain
> characteristics is called a pot. When we say pot, we can refer to both the
> jAti or collection and an individual. There can be a jAti with a single
> member also. The jAti is eternal is the argument.

By eternal, I presume you mean without birth and without death. If yes, then you have
just made a case for an infinite number of eternal entities - the jAti of pots, the jAti(s)
of cloths, the jAti of computer, the jAti of this and the jAti of that. Pray, what is it that
actually differentiates one eternal jAti from another? The attributes of the particular
instances of each jAti? If yes, then you have to say that each attribute is its own eternal 
jAti as well - the jAti of white things, the jAti of big things, the jAti of small things, the 
jAti of living things, the jAti of non-living things etc.
 
If you mean that a thing can be eternal and still be born and die, then you had better 
clarify what you mean by eternal. Is it merely long life?

> 
> RV: I'm not negating eternality of jAti but saying the opposite. An
> apparently new jAti is nothing but modification of existing ones.

How so? What is meant by "an apparently new jAti?" Is it something that is born? If yes,
in what sense can you say it is eternal?  Again, merely long life? Even so, how can an
eternal jAti lend itself to modification, and that too in combination with other eternal
jAtis? Is such a modification real or only apparent? If the former, what happens to the 
eternality of the jAti once it gets modified to another one? If the latter, apparent to whom?
 
I'll stop here!
 
Vidyasankar