[Advaita-l] Shankara authenticates Shiva

[V Subrahmanian]

On Thu, Aug 18, 2016 at 2:22 PM, D Gayatri <dgayatrinov10 at gmail.com> wrote:

> > 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.


Shankara has always said in the Upanishad bhashyas that the background
story is only a stuti and the tattva conveyed there alone is relevant. So,
Shankara has left out that background as arthavāda. Hence, he has not
authenticated that irrelevant portion. Only what is relevant needs to be
authenticated and not the chaff.


>
> > 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.
>

In that case, Vishnu is also one among the devatās to be propitiated.
Shankara for that reason alone has included Vishnu also in the mantra
1.4.11 as one among the created deities since there is the 'well known'
instance for Shankara in the krishna yajur veda of Vishnu, listed among so
many other devatas as the pati of parvatas.