[Advaita-l] Shankara and DrishTi-SrishTi vAda

[Venkatraghavan S]

Namaste Sri Praveen,
Thank you for your comments.

In fact, I was debating whether to include BS2.2.29 in the paper or not,
but it was getting too long, and the MAndUkya kArika had dealt with the
equality of dream and waking states in some detail already.

Your comments on DSV and prakriyAs are spot on - completely agree. However,
I also understand why it can be so difficult to accept for many.

Regards,
Venkatraghavan
On 8 May 2016 6:23 p.m., "Praveen R. Bhat" <bhatpraveen at gmail.com> wrote:

> Namaste Venkatraghavan ji, all,
>
> Thanks for sharing your article. I particularly appreciate your take that
> Bhashyakara's refutation uses prathamamallanyAya (PMN). Although I'd have
> liked to read BSB 2.2.29 वैधर्माच्च न स्वप्नादिवत् handled as well, but
> that too can be answered by PMN. :) I move on to a general response on how
> I see DSV in the rest of my mail.
>
> The difficulty with people understanding DSV and/ or ekajIvavAda is that
> people mix prakriyAs as seen in some responses. Mixing up of prakriyAs,
> akin to mixing up sattAs, not only adds to confusion in understanding, but
> almost certainly leads to wrong conclusions. Moreover, those who find DSV
> absurd do not realize that the jIva who perceives the "statement of
> absurdity" from "another" has created the other jIva, let alone his
> statement. All questions that pop up in DSV can be resolved with a simple
> स्वप्नवत्... and to me, that is sheer brilliance.
>
> The most important point amiss among people that question any prakriyA is
> its purpose. None of the creation prakriyAs or upamAs taken literally serve
> any constructive purpose for the final goal of a sAdhaka, which is mokSha.
> All prakriyAs only try to *explain away* the questions faced by a jIva who
> finds himself facing the overwhelming saMsAra with its creatures and
> things, except the question that will serve the final purpose. The tAtparya
> of the Shruti doesn't lie in the creation story, nor in satyatva or
> mithyatva of something as I have voiced earlier too, but in proving the
> ekameva advitIya vastu that always exists as I. In that light, the purpose
> of DSV is just that, mokSha of the jIva, which is the knowing the truth
> about himself as brahman and not the perceived BMSC. IMHO, this is
> misunderstood as same as vij~nAnavAda (VV), which it is not. DSV doesn't
> say that consciousness itself is perceived by itself which is
> कर्तृकर्मविरोध one of the many flaws of VV, the others being
> क्षणिकभङ्गुरत्वम् momentariness, or even मोक्षासम्भव none of which are in
> DSV. The consciousness is the only existing whole for DSV, everything else
> seemingly existent borrows its sattA from oneself. In that they are मिथ्या,
> and not अत्यन्तासत् as you rightly pointed out about VV.
>
> I remember now that some years back I had brought this question to this
> list about my dream, wherein the dreamer I was thinking that I was
> dreaming! :) I always thought that to understand DSV better, one could
> assume that the dreamer/ taijasa has the capability to know that he is
> dreaming while he is dreaming. The question of jIva being incapable of
> creating the world like Ishvara is an untenable question since taijasa
> finds himself in a dream world, dreamt by himself as vishva who went to an
> ignorant sleep, wherein there is no need to create one more world, and when
> he "wakes up" to knowledge, he doesn't need to create another world either.
> The question itself doesn't exist then. The other objection one faces in
> DSV, albeit by mixing up another prakriyA or more, is the following: "I am
> not a सर्वज्ञ, I don't know what goes on with any of my creation subjects,
> sentient and insentient?" Again, स्वप्नवत् is the answer. During the dream,
> for which my knowledge as vishva is the अभिन्ननिमित्तोपादानकारण, I as
> taijasa don't know what goes on with the created subjects and the dream
> world that I perceive. Yet another objection is that "in the dream, one
> faces what one has perceived in waking". This is also a mix up of prakriyA
> where that statement is made. In DSV, the woken up waker is not vishva, but
> नित्यशुद्धबुद्धमुक्त brahman and the sAdhaka is the dreamer taijasa who
> gets to knows that he is dreaming. Finally, there is the objection of how a
> dream knowledge can give real freedom to the waker, but the dream-lion is
> discussed in other prakriyAs too.
>
> gurupAdukAbhyAm,
> --Praveen R. Bhat
> /* Through what should one know That owing to which all this is known!
> [Br.Up. 4.5.15] */
>
> On Wed, May 4, 2016 at 11:25 PM, Venkatraghavan S via Advaita-l <
> advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I was asked about the apparent refutation of DrishTi-SrishTi vAda in
>> ShankarAchArya's prasthAna traya bhAshya. Please find below a link to a
>> paper that discusses this.
>>
>>
>> http://www.mediafire.com/download/4q9e6s9a99k9rye/Shankaracharya_and_Drishti_Srishti_Vada_4-May-2016.pdf
>>
>
>