[Advaita-l] Fwd: Rama and Krishna are Jiva-s - Mahabharata

[V Subrahmanian]

On Wed, May 24, 2017 at 10:16 PM, Kalyan <kalyan_kg at yahoo.com> wrote:

> If Shankara has accepted the Buddha's views on dispassion (apart from
> acknowledging the closeness of his school with Buddhism)


The acknowledgement of the closeness is not to be seen in isolation. It is
immediately followed by Shankara's statement of the great chasm of
difference between the two schools: na etad buddhena bhashitam. It is this
that matters to Shankara more than the agreement of Buddha with mithyatva
of the world. For the Vedantin, the mithyatva of the world is incidental
for the establishment of the satyatva of Brahman.


> then it is even more surprising that he passes these unflattering comments
> on Buddhism -
>
> http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/sbe34/sbe34208.htm


This is nothing odd for Shankara is only criticizing the various schools,
doctrines, of Buddhism. Shankara has given similar treatment to other
opponent schools as well: there are bouquets and brickbats, both in varied
measures. That is his norm.



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