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

[Sunil Bhattacharjya]

Namaste,
The historical studies have been made so far in a sporadic manner. I hope the historians will look at it earnestly. 

Ashwaghosha and Nagarjuna were contemporaries of Kanishka and the date of Kanishka from the Pauranic source as well as from Astronomical studies comes out to be the beginning of the 13th century BCE.
It has also been reported that the Buddhist teaching in Nalanda was vibrant till the end of the 12th century CE, i.e. till. Bhaktiyar Khilji (d.1206 CE) destroyed all that was in Nalanda and he is reported to have killed about 10,000 students and teachers there. 
Buddhist Nyayaikas as well as the early Hindu Nyayaikas were active  within the period of two millennium or so (from the time of Ashwaghosha/Nagarjuna to the time of Bakhtiyar khilji)
Regards,Sunil KB



 


     On Monday, September 21, 2015 10:17 PM, Jaldhar H. Vyas via Advaita-l <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:
   

 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>
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