[Advaita-l] Shankara authenticates Shiva as the son of Brahma

[D Gayatri]

Shankara says that it is *Indra's* thought that Uma was forever
associated with sarvajna Ishwara. Please check the bhAshya again.
These are Indra's thoughts according to Shankara.

On 15 August 2016 at 12:46, Venkatraghavan S <agnimile at gmail.com> wrote:
> I don't think you have understood my point.
>
> Indra did not use the neuter gender to refer to Uma's husband, he used it to
> refer to Yaksha. Indra makes no reference to Uma's husband at all.
>
> Only Shankara makes reference to Uma's husband as Sarvajna Ishvara, and not
> when he is talking about Yaksha, when he is talking about Uma always being
> associated with Him. And there is no gender confusion there at all.
>
> Regards,
> Venkatraghavan
>
>
> On 15 Aug 2016 7:58 a.m., "D Gayatri" <dgayatrinov10 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Shri Venkatraghavanji
>>
>>
>> > If you are saying that because the neuter gender is used in the pronoun
>> > (एतत्), Siva cannot be referred to because he is male,
>>
>>
>> I am saying, if Indra thought that the companion of Uma who was
>> sarvajna Ishwara, was a male (being her *husband*), then he would not
>> have used neuter gender to refer to the sarvajna Ishwara. I also
>> invite you to check the translation of Swami Gambhirananda. He uses
>> the neutral word "God" everywhere in this context for Ishwara and does
>> not interpret it as Shiva. So your assumption that Ishwara here refers
>> to Shiva is no more than speculation.
>>
>>
>> and no masculine
>> > entity can be referred to, then by that logic, the Upanishad cannot be
>> > referring to ईश्वर as that Yaksha either - because the word ईश्वर is
>> > masculine in gender too.
>> >
>> > However, that interpretation would be wrong, because Shankara repeatedly
>> > says that the Yaksha is indeed ईश्वर only.
>>
>> Let me point out that yaksha can be used both in neuter and masculine
>> gender.
>>
>> Having said that, consider the following -
>>
>> 1. ayam AtmA brahma - here Atman is masculine and brahman is neuter
>> but there is no problem with Atman referring to brahman.
>>
>> 2. Mohini is Vishnu - here Mohini is feminine and Vishnu is masculine,
>> but there is no problem with Mohini referring to Vishnu.
>>
>> 3. Brihannala is Arjuna - here Brihannala is (I think) feminine and
>> Arjuna is masculine, but there is no problem with Brihannala referring
>> to Vishnu
>>
>> Hence there is no problem with the word yaksha referring to the word
>> Ishwara, even if the former is used in neuter gender.
>>
>> Regards
>> Gayatri