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

[Rajaram Venkataramani]

>
> 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?

RV: Yes.

> 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.
>
RV: Yes.

>
> >
> > 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?

RV: No.

> If yes, in what sense can you say it is eternal?  Again, merely long life?

RV: Not long life.

> Even so, how can an eternal jAti lend itself to modification, and that too
> in combination with other eternal
> jAtis?

RV: In any language, there are only finite set of fundamental sounds. There
are well or ill defined rules by which these sounds are combined to create
words. Without words, you cannot indicate objects. A new word is produced
from the same fundamental sounds whether it is derived from existing words
or not. In that sense, it is eternal because it is from the same sound that
existed before.

> 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?
>

RV: From the words, lap, top and computer you say laptop computer, is there
a real or apparent modification of lap etc.? If you create a new sound kit
kat from existing ki, t and ka, is it a real or apparent modification of ki
etc.? The fundamental sounds are immutable but their combination is. (As an
aside, a word or a sentence indicating an eternal truth will be immutable).

>

I'll stop here!
>

> Vidyasankar
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