[Advaita-l] Body is the disease

[Srinath Vedagarbha]

Dear Sri.Chandramouli-ji,


On Wed, Jan 22, 2014 at 2:39 AM, H S Chandramouli
<hschandramouli at gmail.com>wrote:

>
>
> You will notice that your argument was that one cannot argue on the
> question because the elements are not " true  It was not presented as Purva
> Pakshin view, but as your view. If you had not accepted this as your view
> you could have as well answered the question directly.
>

Perhaps, I could have more clear in explaining. I thought I was clear by
using the catch phrase "at least in such person's own siddhAnta" in my
reply to Sri.Bhaskar-ji.

I am not saying in every vAda, both siddhAntin and pUrva-paxin must accept
their pramANa-s as true. (this is where another member also wrongly
interpreted my original mail). All I am saying is that they must forward
pramANa-s (to support whatever their position is) which are considered
"true" by themselves in their siddhAnta. I am not saying this "true-ness"
must be accepted from both sides. Let me quote my original sentence again;

/Quote

...it is expected in vidvad circles that hEtu used in such argument is
indeed accepted as "true" (tAtvIka), at least in such person's own
siddhAnta if not in opponent's siddhAnta...

/Unquote.

Here is clarification from another perspective;

Say, you enter in to a dispute with other person regarding 2 + 2 = 4.
Your position is 2+2=4. Your opponent's position is 2+2=5. The very
expectation (akAnkSha)within yourself is that your position is correct
and you must establish it so to the opponent. What do you do in this
vAda? You must prove your position with evidences (pramANa-s) which
you consider them as valid (tAtvIka). At this time it does not matter
whether opponent treat those evidences as tAtvIka or not. That
question comes later when opponent does cross exam of your witness.
But to start with you must provide tAtvIka pramANa-s (tAtvIka from
your perspective). Please do not confuse between truthness of
pramANa-s and realty of pramANa-s. If Madhusudhana would have
considered anAditva (which is used as hEtu in his argument) as truth,
I would not mind even if such hEtu is unreal (mithyA). But you see, as
explained before, anAditva hEtU is considered as avidyA-drusTi ih his
own school. Therefore, used hEtu is "false" in nature per his own
school. That is the point I was trying to make.




> Practically all the points you have mentioned above have been raised as
> Purva Paksha and answered by Sri Bhagavatpada in several places and really
> forms the basis of Advaita Sidhanta itself. While I am sure you are
> yourself aware of all the answers, it may not be practicable to cover all
> these aspects in a brief way by mail. Maybe some other members could do so.
> I will leave it at that.
>
>
No comments here.



> Only one point I would like to touch upon. You wrote
>
> <<
> > Surely such a
> > vada is admissible.   However such a vada need not lead to certainty of
> the
> > conclusion, but point to only a possibility of it being so.
>
>
> If my understanding is correct, "possibility" (smabhava) is not pramANa in
> any school of vEdAnta. Moreover, mere "possibility" of truth (such as
> "Brahma sattyaM jagan mitthyam" etc) is not sufficient enough for a sAdhaka
> to vest his life in a pursuit, which may or may not be true. >>
>
> You are not interpreting me correctly. It is not the intention to say that
> a sadhaka should start on his pursuit on the basis of a possibility. The
> sadhaka should start on his pursuit on the basis of assertion by Shruti
> which was my next sentence in the original mail.  It is only to show the
> limitation of reasoning in such matters which are beyond the purview of all
> pramanas.

Such a vada is indeed accepted as silanalogic reasoning as
> compared to sillogic reasoning which is the commonly accepted inferential
> reasoning ( fire and smoke ) . It is presented to provide strength to other
> arguments presented in support of a contention. In fact when it is said
> that Truth is to be ascertained by Shruti, Yukti and Anubhava, my
> understanding is that Yukti refers to this type of reasoning.
>
>
Exactly.

Remember shruti is not black & white so that we are complaint 'as-is', but
quite guhya and susceptible to many varied interpretation. Otherwise we
would not have these many schools. The quality of interpretation depends on
the yukti used to support such interpretation among many other things such
tAtparya linga-s etc.

I am not sure why do think all other non-advaitic schools use only yukti
and not shruti. May be I am not reading you well?

/SV