[Advaita-l] Shankara authenticates Shiva

[D Gayatri]

> This message alone is relevant to Advaita Vedanta. The incidental
> information of the persons involved in the conversation is irrelevant to
> Advaita Vedanta. So, the claim that 'Shankara authenticates Shiva is
> Brahma's son' merely because the Advaitic message is contained there, is
> only mischievous and smacks of bigotry and nothing more. For Advaita, even
> the Veda, the container of the vedantic truth, is mithyā; what then to say
> the irrelevance of the MB instance.


The advaitic message is contained there because the teacher in
question, brahmA is a jnAni and he knows the advaitic message. That
this has been quoted by Shankara shows that this section of the
Mahabharata is indeed not an interpolation. Thus the view of
Krishna-Dwaipayana that Shiva is the son of Brahma is authenticated by
none other than Shankara, by quoting their conversation. To claim that
the opponent is mischievous and bigoted, is unfortunate, because IMHO,
personal comments should be avoided.


> The above argument is invalid.  In the Br.up. 1.4.10 Shankara has clearly
> said that the worship of devats, etc. is essential and conducive to the
> generation of favourable mental state to the sadhana of advaita. Rudram is
> directly favourable for the generation of Advaita jnana and hence Shankara
> has authenticated it in the Jabala upanishad.


Incidentally by quoting the above argument about worship of the
devatas, the above poster has unwittingly accepted that Rudra is not
brahman, but is one among the normal devatas. This is in fact
authenticated further by Shankara himself when he says in the
subsequent verse (1.4.11) that Rudra-Pashupathi is a created entity.
Thus it is clear that Shankara has accepted Shiva as a created entity.