[Advaita-l] Attributes and upadhis
H S Chandramouli
hschandramouli at gmail.com
Sat Jul 11 00:42:16 CDT 2015
Dear Sri Anand Ji ,
This is reg your observation
<< This knowledge or recognition is a case of "akhaNDAkAra vRtti", where
the object is "ghaTa", a pot, with attributes. >> .
I am constrained to say I am unable to agree with this. The complete
statement concerning this knowledge would be “ I recognize that this is
that object “ . Though the part “ I recognize that “ is left unsaid mostly
, it is always there and implied. This makes the knowledge “ khanda “ (
with parts ) , namely it has three parts I ( Pramatru ) , recognize (
Pramana ) and *this is that object* ( Prameya ) . Hence it is not
appropriate to call this knowledge a-khanda ( partless ) “ akhandakara
vritti “. Can you please give a reference to where this called so. Ofcourse
I do not know where it has been stated that it is inappropriate to call it
so . It is only my understanding.
On the otherhand , consider the knowledge generated by the Maha Vakya
Upadesha “ tatvamasi “ . The knowledge generated is of the form “ Aham
Brahmasmi “ . This “ knowledge “ is a-khanda , partless . There is no
Pramatru, Prameya and Pramana components. Hence it is appropriate to call
this knowledge A-khanda ( partless ) “ akhandakara vritti “ . At least I
can cite one reference in support of such a usage. That is its use in
Vedanta Sara by Sri Sadananda Yogi in his Vedanta Sara .
My contention is that the use of the word “ akhandakara vritti “ is
inappropriate in respect of any objective perception ( mediate or immediate
) , ( determinate or indeterminate ) . It is valid only in the context of
MahaVakya Janya Jnana.
I would be grateful for a clarification.
Pranams and Regards
Chandramouli
On Fri, Jul 10, 2015 at 11:39 PM, Keshava PRASAD Halemane via Advaita-l <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:
> namastE. praNaams to all learned-seniors. praNaams to Sri Anand-ji & Sri
> Sadananda ji.
> Oh! i am blessed to have received a response from our beloved Sri Anand-ji
> Hudli. I feel the subtle encouragement to continue to think on the lines as
> advised . . . . . . and hope that it will some time flash in my antahkaraNa
> as crystal clear as expected in and through that advice.
> praNaams again.
> Keshava PRASAD HalemanemOkShakaamaarthadharmahjanmanaa jaayatE jantuḥ |
> samskaaraat hi bhavEt dvijaḥ || vEda-paaThaat bhavEt vipra | brahma
> jnaanaat hi braahmaNah ||
>
>
> On Friday, 10 July 2015 11:14 PM, Anand Hudli <ahudli at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
> Dear Keshavaji and others,
>
>
> Let me give a simple example. Suppose you have a pot painted in blue with
> your favorite figure to distinguish it from other pots. Suppose further
> that you somehow lose the pot, and after a few days you see it in your
> friend's house (did he really steal it? :-)). Suppose also that the paint
> color is now red, not blue, but your favorite figure on it is intact.The
> knowledge that comes to your mind then is "this is that pot", i.e. what you
> see now is the same pot that you saw in your home. But the knowledge, "this
> is that pot" does not involve any attribute of the pot, such as color or
> even the special figure on it, although the recognition may have been based
> on attributes. It is a simple case of recognition, "this is that object",
> without focusing on any attribute of the object. This knowledge or
> recognition is a case of "akhaNDAkAra vRtti", where the object is "ghaTa",
> a pot, with attributes. The attributes do not enter the knowledge "this is
> that pot", although they may enter the (determinate) knowledge "this pot is
> blue", etc.
>
> Anand
>
> On Fri, Jul 10, 2015 at 9:50 PM, Keshava PRASAD Halemane <
> k_prasad_h at yahoo.co.in> wrote:
>
> namastE. praNaams to all learned-seniors. praNaams to Sri Anand-ji & Sri
> Sadananda-ji.
> Let me continue along the same line of thinking as presented in my
> previous emails/posts:
> Earlier, i had mentioned that the etymological derivations in the term
> "akhanDa-AkAra-vRtti" must necessarily be similar to that in the terms
> "ghaTa-AkAra-vRtti" and "paTa-AkAra-vRtti" . . .
> Naturally, any special etymological derivation for one that is quite
> different from the rest would require some specific explanation &
> justification.
> That is, just as the prefixes "ghaTa-" and "paTa-" refer to the
> corresponding ghaTa-object and paTa-object being revealed by the vRtti, the
> prefix "akhanDa-" must also refer to the akhanDa-object/vastu being
> revealed by the corresponding -vRtti.
> Further, the qualifier -AkAra- qualifies the -vRtti with the very same
> qualities/attributes of the object that gets reflected in the antahkaraNa
> as that -vRtti; that is, in other words, this -vRtti is a true-reflection
> in the antahkaraNa of that whatever object-with-its-attributes that is
> being objectified.
> Then a question may arise as to what qualities/attributes correspond to
> the case of akhanDa-AkAra.
> Yes, the one-and-only-one-singularly-unique-quality/attribute of that
> akhanDa-vastu is that it is amenable to being revealed by the corresponding
> antahkaraNa-vRtti by forming a true-reflection of itSelf in the
> nirmala-antahkaraNa as the akhanDa-AkAra-vRtti.
> Now, i remember that Sri LalitAlAlitaH had expressed a different
> viewpoint, however. According to what he mentioned in his emails/posts,
> although the prefixes ghaTa- and paTa- refer to the corresponding
> object-with-attributes; the prefix akhanDa- has a different meaning - it
> refers to the attributeless nature of whatever object is being revealed by
> the akhanDa-AkAra-vRtti. So if ghaTa object is being revealed by the
> akhanDa-AkAra-vRtti then the prefix akhanDa- there refers to the
> attributeless ghaTa-object that gets revealed thereby; similarly an
> attributeless paTa-object or attributeless dEvadattaH etc. Also, he
> defines the qualifier -AkAra- as meaning the yOgyatA or capacity or ability
> of the vRtti to dispel the ajnAna of the object being revealed . . .
> Anyway, i do not know how convincing can these explanations be.
> Keshava PRASAD HalemanemOkShakaamaarthadharmahjanmanaa jaayatE jantuḥ |
> samskaaraat hi bhavEt dvijaḥ || vEda-paaThaat bhavEt vipra | brahma
> jnaanaat hi braahmaNah ||
>
>
> On Friday, 10 July 2015 7:09 PM, Keshava PRASAD Halemane <
> k_prasad_h at yahoo.co.in> wrote:
>
>
> namastE. praNaams to all learned-seniors. praNaams to Sri Anand-ji &
> Sri Sadananda ji.
> Let me share my understanding:
> I tried but i am unable to copy-paste [from that page-50 of that pdf ebook
> that Sri Anand-ji shared recently] so let me rewrite it here in roman
> alphabets - . . . 2. kim akhanDArtham | aparyAyaSabdAnAm padavRttismArita
> atirikta agOcara pramAjanakatvam | (664) . . . The English translation say
> - . . . 2. Impartite cognition is the character of generating valid
> cognition produced by words which are not synonymous and are not indicative
> of anything other than the onesuggested by the vritti of the word. . .
> . Note that there is no mention as to whether it is with the attributes or
> without the attributes. [if it is somewhere else, i might have missed
> it] The issue being taken up there is not of whether 'with' or 'without'
> the attributes. The qualifier "akhanDa-" is qualifying the "-artha", that
> it is the "clear-&-unambiguous" nature of the meaning that is conveyed by
> the word/sentence. There is no mention of the nature of the -vRtti, like
> the -AkAra- of -vRtti [which may refer to a reflection of the -AkAra- of
> the object being objectified in the antahkaraNa as a -vRtti] etc. as for
> example in the terms ghaTa-AkAra-vRtti, paTa-AkAra-vRtti, . . .
> akhanDa-AkAra-vRtti.
> Keshava PRASAD HalemanemOkShakaamaarthadharmahjanmanaa jaayatE jantuḥ |
> samskaaraat hi bhavEt dvijaḥ || vEda-paaThaat bhavEt vipra | brahma
> jnaanaat hi braahmaNah ||
>
>
> On Friday, 10 July 2015 6:19 PM, kuntimaddi sadananda <
> kuntimaddisada at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
> Keshava Prasad - PraNams.
>
> If I understand correctly akhaarthataa or akhandaartatva - in the in
> context of soyam devadatta involves samanaadhikaraNa - where in the present
> case it is badhaayam samaanadhikaraNa, where one unitary meaning for
> Devadatta is arrived after dropping contradictory qualifications while
> retaining the common ones.
>
> Akhandaakaara vRititi involves from your description the oneness that
> pervades the jiiva brahman ikyam vRitti jnaanam as Swami Paramarthanandaji
> explained. Originally I thought it signifies the result while Swamiji
> clarified the jnaana vRitti prakriaya itself.
>
> I am just stating the words the way I understand.
>
> Hari Om!
> Sadananda
>
> --------------------------------------------
> On Fri, 7/10/15, Keshava PRASAD Halemane via Advaita-l <
> advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:
>
> Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] Attributes and upadhis
> To: "Srirudra" <srirudra at gmail.com>, "Anand Hudli" <ahudli at gmail.com>,
> "Kuntimaddi Sadananda" <kuntimaddisada at yahoo.com>, "A. Discussion Group
> for Advaita Vedanta" <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>
> Date: Friday, July 10, 2015, 8:03 AM
>
> namastE. praNaams to all
> learned-seniors. praNaams to Sri Anand-ji; SriRudra (Sri R.
> Krishnamoorthy) ji & Sri Sadananda ji.
> To repeat, the question that i posed earlier was - Q: How
> is it that the example - "this is that dEvadattaH" - an
> example for akhanDAkAra-vRtti [niShprakAraka-vRtti] ?
>
> Now, after quite a bit of searching around, and following
> the advice of Sri Anand ji (to read page-50 of the ebook
> that he shared earlier) i found that the term used there is
> indeed not akhanDAkAra-vRtti [niShprakAraka-vRtti] but
> rather the "akhanDArthatva"/"akhanDArthataa" of that
> statement "this is that dEvadattaH". Of course, the two
> must be quite different! One is "akhanDArthatva" associated
> with a word/sentence intending to convey some knowledge;
> while the other is "akhanDAkAratva" associated with a vRtti
> revealing whatever it reveals.
> As per my understanding [i have always been maintaining the
> same stance] that example - "this is that dEvadattaH" -
> cannot be an example for akhanDAkAra-vRtti
> [niShprakAraka-vRtti] - but now i have also learnt that
> it is indeed an example for "akhanDArthatva" associated
> with that sentence [as i discover now from reading page-50
> of that ebook, following the advice of Sri Anand-ji] !
> Many other points raised in the prolonged discussions
> associated with this and many other threads having the term
> "akhanDAkara-vRtti" etc in the subject-line, are all
> centered around and arising from this example, to a great
> extent, as far as i understood them. This i feel is the
> one major difference in the viewpoints held by me and that
> expressed by Sri LalitAlAlitaH [of course, it is a different
> matter that he never addressed my questions directly nor
> clarified any details with appropriate references /
> citations to original texts of our SAstras - which i
> sincerely expect from the learned-seniors]!
> Keshava PRASAD HalemanemOkShakaamaarthadharmahjanmanaa
> jaayatE jantuḥ | samskaaraat hi bhavEt dvijaḥ ||
> vEda-paaThaat bhavEt vipra | brahma jnaanaat hi
> braahmaNah ||
>
>
> On Friday, 10 July 2015 3:59 PM,
> Srirudra <srirudra at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
> DearI am not able to understand your requirement.Upadhi is
> a Samskrit word.Attribute is its English equivalent.It is
> the nearest English word to make a non Samskrit student to
> understand its usage.My explanation stops with that.If you
> want to know how Brahman is thought of as with upadhis etc I
> myself do not know.I am also trying to know how Brahman with
> upadhis becomes Easwara etc.Every individual has to find for
> himself only.This is a subjective matter.R.Krishnamoorthy.
>
> Sent from my iPad
> On 10-Jul-2015, at 1:21 pm, Keshava PRASAD Halemane <
> k_prasad_h at yahoo.co.in>
> wrote:
>
>
> namastE. My Dear Sri R. Krishnamoorthy ji:
> Thanks. Sri Sada ji mentioned (if i have understood him
> correctly) that upAdhi is the locus of attributes, but then
> that they are inseparable. Anyway, irrespective of
> whatever fine distinctions in the technical terms associated
> with the issue at hand, the questions that i posed earlier
> still require to be addressed.
> Keshava PRASAD HalemanemOkShakaamaarthadharmahjanmanaa
> jaayatE jantuḥ | samskaaraat hi bhavEt dvijaḥ ||
> vEda-paaThaat bhavEt vipra | brahma jnaanaat hi
> braahmaNah ||
>
>
> On Friday, 10 July 2015 12:54 PM,
> Srirudra via Advaita-l <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>
> wrote:
>
>
> Dear
> Upadhi is the Samskrit term for the attribute.Upa Adhi means
> which are characteristics of the object as seen or
> perceived.R.Krishnamoorthy.
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> > On 09-Jul-2015, at 2:21 pm, akhanda via Advaita-l
> <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>
> wrote:
> >
> > Can anyone explain the difference between attributes
> and upaadhis? In the mahaavaakyas, are the attributes to be
> negated through jahaajahallakshaNa, or the upaadhis?
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Anil Gidwani
> >
> >
> >
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