[Advaita-l] A critique of advaita's 'upadhi' ????

[V Subrahmanian]

On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 9:06 AM, Venkatesh Murthy via Advaita-l <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

> Namaste
>
> The same author is attacking Adi Sankara and Sri V. Subrahmanian's blog in
> this article -
>
> http://creative.sulekha.com/a-critique-of-advaita-s-upadhi_472905_blog
>
> It is on Upadhi in Advaita. We say One Brahman becomes many by Upadhi. The
> Upadhi is Ajnana itself. The Ajnana is also false.
>
> I kindly request Sri Subrahmanian to answer this because the Critique
> Author is questioning his blog.
>

Dear Sri Murthy,

I am aware of that blogger.  During those days there was a lot of exchange
between us and when he used extremely vulgar, unprintable, language against
Shankara, Advaitins and myself, I complained to the Moderators of sulekha
and had a few of his blogs removed and had him sternly warned.

For the information of advaitins, the concept of 'upādhi' in vedanta is not
Shankara's invention:

रह्मसूत्रभाष्यम् । तृतीयः अध्यायः । द्वितीयः
पादः । उभयलिङ्गाधिकरणम् । सूत्रम् १८ - भाष्यम्
यत एव च अयमात्मा चैतन्यरूपो निर्विशेषो वाङ्मनसातीतः परप्रतिषेधोपदेश्यः, अत
एव च अस्योपाधिनिमित्तामपारमार्थिकीं विशेषवत्तामभिप्रेत्य
जलसूर्यकादिवदित्युपमा उपादीयते मोक्षशास्त्रेषु — ‘यथा ह्ययं ज्योतिरात्मा
विवस्वानपो भिन्न बहुधैकोऽनुगच्छन् । *उपाधिना क्रियते भेदरूपो* देवः
क्षेत्रेष्वेवमजोऽयमात्मा’ इति, ‘एक एव हि भूतात्मा भूते भूते व्यवस्थितः ।
एकधा बहुधा चैव दृश्यते जलचन्द्रवत्’ (ब्र. बिं. १२) इति चैवमादिषु ॥ १८ ॥

I have seen Jeeva Goswami too cite the above verse somewhere.

That blogger's other article that you cited was in desperate response to
this blog of mine:

http://creative.sulekha.com/advaita-and-science-vii-the-paradigm-shift_424671_blog

This blog of mine is on 'upadhi':

http://creative.sulekha.com/some-thoughts-on-upadhi-in-vedanta_470896_blog

regards
subrahmanian.v

>
> --
> Regards
>
> -Venkatesh
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