[Advaita-l] Advaita and Madhyamika Buddhism

[V Subrahmanian]

Sri Ramana Maharshi himself has translated many Vedantic works to Tamil.
One of his favorite works was 'Kaivalya Navaneetam', overflowing with
Vedanta. 'Yoga/Jnana Vāsishtam' is another of his favorites in Tamil.

vs

On Mon, Sep 19, 2016 at 3:02 PM, Venkatraghavan S via Advaita-l <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

> Namaste Raghav ji,
>
> "just that there are many who stick to such Tamil works. Can such an
> approach not lead to jnAna at all"
>
> This topic is briefly dealt with in a work called Vichara Sagara - you may
> be familiar with it. There the author, Nishchala dasa considers the
> question whether vedAnta shAstra needs to necessarily be in the Sanskrit
> language or not and concludes that 1) provided that the teaching is in line
> with shruti 2) is taught by a shrotriya guru, is sufficient for jnAna. The
> important thing is that the message is shruti sammata and is delivered by a
> competent authority.
>
> Therefore the answer to the first part of your question, "can the teaching
> be in a language other than in Sanskrit", at least in my view, is yes. The
> answer to the second part of your question, "can the learning be through a
> book, without a live guru", is sadly no. Of course there can be exceptions
> to the rule, but we need to observe the rule, not the exceptions.
>
> In relation to the topic of this thread - I just want to clarify that I am
> NOT trying to make the point that "mAdhyamika Buddhism is in essence
> vedAnta", just speculating on the nature of advaita's response to
> mAdhyamika, as gleaned from extant works.
>
> Regards,
> Venkatraghavan
>
> On Mon, Sep 19, 2016 at 9:45 AM, Raghav Kumar via Advaita-l <
> advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:
>
> > On 19-Sep-2016 1:10 pm, "Raghav Kumar" <raghavkumar00 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Namaste Ravi Kiran ji and Chandramouli ji
> > >
> > > I understand your perspective on prakriyA-bheda vis-a-vis
> > asAdhu-prakriyA.
> > > As for precluding the possibility of avidyA-nivRtti without using
> > sanskrit,
> > > i am not too sure.  I was having in mind the very real situation I see
> > > around me as I reside in thiruvannamalai, Here many sincere people who
> > > AFAIK have a reasonable degree of the prerequisites and are commited to
> > > self-knowledge have no explicit recognition or acknowledgment that
> > 'shruti
> > > is shadba-pramANa' or that the words of the upaniShat-pramANam are to
> be
> > > unfolded  or heard (i.e.,shravaNam of bhAshyam etc., is to done). They
> > > might study exclusively Tamil non-sanskritic works of Sri Ramana
> Maharshi
> > > (notso much the overtly Vedantic Tamil works of the Kovilur Math like
> > > Sorupa sAram etc.)  like the Tamil work Ulladu NArpadu.And find it
> quite
> > > sufficient for their jnana-sAdhana (in their perception.). (even
> without
> > > any help from an accomplished shrotriya like Swami Paramarthanandaji
> who
> > > has taught its Sanskrit translation sat-darshanam.) I do know the
> caveat
> > > about not doing svAtantreNa anveShaNam etc.; just that there are many
> who
> > > stick to such Tamil works. Can such an approach not lead to jnAna at
> all.
> > > We could accommodate such an approach by saying that any given
> > independent
> > > text is anuvAda of vedAnta if there is nothing in the text which
> > blatantly
> > > contradicts shruti even if there is no obvious adhyAropa-apavAda and
> thus
> > > we view the said text as a prakaraNa-grantha. Again I do realize that
> > > Ulladu Narpadu is relatively easy to accommodate as a prakaraNa-grantha
> > > given the couple of reference to 'veda' in it. In other cases, for
> e.g.,
> > > sometime back there was a discussion of the possibility of a
> > > vyAkaraNa-prasthAna by Sri Siva Senani ji which pre-dates bhAShyakAra.
> I
> > > would suggest that if appropriate care is taken, we need not dismiss
> such
> > > approaches outright as being invalid approaches. I suppose it
> ultimately
> > > boils down to who is unfolding/teaching the given non-sanskrit text.
> > >
> > > I thank you for the responses - probably I am digressing a bit from the
> > > main topic of the thread.
> > >
> > > Regarding the topic of the thread - it may be too much to contemplate
> the
> > > possibility of accommodating the mAdhyamika-s per se. Unless they are
> > > rigorous enough in their logic, in which case they will be led to being
> > > 'logically trapped' by a panchadashikAra who will end by saying
> 'AyuShmAn
> > > bhava' !
> > >
> > > Om
> > > Raghav
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
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