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

[V Subrahmanian]

On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 3:47 PM, D Gayatri <dgayatrinov10 at gmail.com> wrote:

> > Why not? Why cannot Shiva the sarvajna be Brahman.  After all, Shankara
> has
> > said in the BSB: Parameshwara can take any form to bless the aspirant.
>
>
> Please dont ask the same questions again and again. We are going round
> and round in circles. Shiva cannot be brahman, according to Shankara
> bhagavatpAda, because in his brihadaranyaka upanishad bhAshya 1.4.11,
> Shankara says that Rudra-Pashupathi (Shiva) is a created entity. Now
> you will again quote your same old article to show Narayana is also
> created, but according to Shankara bhagavatpAda, Narayana is uncreated
> and bhagavatpAda explicitly calls Narayana as paramAtman etc. I am not
> interested in your personal opinions. I am only interested in what
> bhagvtpAda says.
>

I would also say the same to you. I am not interested in your personal
opinion about the BUB.  I am interested only in what Shankara says.

>
>
> >> Also, for the record, the word Umapati is applied to Bhagavan Narasimha
> in
> >> the Narasimha tapani upanishad and so the sarvajna Ishwara could
> equally be
> >> Bhagavan Narasimha  -
> >
> >
> > Then, Umā the daughter of Himavān cannot be eternally associated with
> > Narasimha.
>
>
> Tell that to the upanishad and not me. I have just quoted that
> upanishad to show that Narasimha is also called as Umapati and a host
> of other names that one would normally apply to Shiva.
>

The Upanishad did not suggest that Himavan's daughter is what is meant by
Uma in that name for Narasimha.  There may be a name similar to that for
Lakshmi.  That is beside the point.  We are interested only the Himavan's
daughter uma.

In fact, the words Rudra and Pashupathy are also applied by vaishnavas to
Vishnu and a commentary is also given. By that, the BU creation of Rudra,
as pashupathy, is applicable to Vishnu alone and nothing in the BU
upanishad says that Vishnu is the uncreated one.   I have seen this bigoted
attitude: Whenever Rudra is praised, it is actually Vishnu is praised.
Whenever Rudra is created or born, it is Shiva.  Surely, advaitins have no
such compulsions.