[Advaita-l] Shankara and DrishTi-SrishTi vAda - eka jeeva vaada

[Anand Hudli]

If we go by the dictum "dRShtireva vishvasRShTiH", I am unable to
understand how we could justify aneka-jIva-vAda. If each jIva creates his
own world, either we have to accept that there will be multiple creations
or there is an Ishvara or a "Chief jIva" who creates certain common things
like "AkAsha" etc. The former is not very convincing, to say the least, and
the latter approaches sRShTi-dRShti-vAda. In other words, dRShTi-sRShTi
requires the world reality to be purely subjective, exactly like the dream
world. The dream world is entirely the creation of only one individual, the
dreamer, although the dream itself may contain numerous jIva-like entities
or semblances of jIvas. It is possible to argue that multiple persons can
have the same dream and participate in the same dream, as shown in some
modern movies, for example "Inception", but I am not sure if that is pure
fiction or has a basis in facts. Besides, we could invoke the principle of
"lAghava" or the "Occam's razor" principle to rule out all dreamers except
one. If the same thing can be explained by the fewest assumptions, that is
to be preferred over others.

However, PrakAshAnanda derives his eka-jIva-vAda by first establishing that
there is only one avidyA and hence one jIva. He also uses the shruti "ajAm
ekAm lohita-shukla-kRShNAm..".

Anand