[Advaita-l] On Brahmasutra - Shankara Bhasya - By Swami Paramarthanandaji

[Jaldhar H. Vyas]

On Tue, 15 Sep 2015, Sunil Bhattacharjya via Advaita-l wrote:

> Thank you Sadaji for the good work of Swami Paramarthananda. However, I 
> am a bit hurt at the statement that Lord Buddha did not propound a 
> systematic philosophy. Lord Buddha's life  was like an open book. He 
> learnt Sankhya from Alara kalama but did not agree with the pluarlity of 
> the purushas.The he took to practice  of yoga under Ramaputta but did 
> not agree entirely with him. Then he meditated in Gaya for 6 years and 
> was enlightened and he  could see all his past lives. Another person to 
> say that he knows all his past lives was Lord Krishna. Then as a first 
> step Lord Buddha  taught in Sarnath about the 4 noble truths including 
> the 8 fold-path needed as preparatory to the Spiritual journey and then 
> he taught about the ways to achieve the Videhamukta state, which he 
> called as the state free from the five skandhas (five koshas) or the 
> state of Shunyata. This is the gist of his life's teaching established 
> through innumearble discourses.

The sutras and other discourses weren't written until much later.  I think 
it is quite fair from a historical point of view to say that Shakyamuni 
did not propound a systematic philosophy.

>
> As regards Budhha's philosophy one should read Buddhist canonical 
> theravada texts and the canonical Mahayana texts. The brain-waves of 
> people like Vasubandhu, Dignagaga and Dharmakirti

...who all lived a thousand years after the death of Shakyamuni.

> in Buddhism are 
> probably like the works of Navyanyaikas in Hinduism.

Not even close.  Buddhism had already been mostly forgotten in India by 
the time of Navynyaya.  Only the oldest transitional figures between the 
old and new schools of Nyaya such as Udayana acharya had direct experience 
with debating Buddhists.

-- 
Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>