[Advaita-l] vedAntins at the time of shankara

[Jaldhar H. Vyas]

On Fri, 15 Sep 2017, Kalyan via Advaita-l wrote:

>
> //In the bruhadaaraNyaka Upanishad mantra bhAshya (2-1-20) , 
> bhagavatpAda observes that there is no disagreement among the followers 
> of the vedAnta / Upanishads with regard to the 'ikyamatya' uniformity of 
> vedAnta siddhAnta pertaining to the identity of the jeevaatma and the 
> paramAtma. //
>
> Dear Sri Bhaskar-ji
>
> The bhedAbheda school of Vedanta is as old as advaita, if not older.
>
> Even Shankara criticizes views of other earlier upanishad commentators 
> like BhartRprapancha and these others were not advaitins.
>
> It is therefore incorrect to hold that advaita was the only original philosophy of all vedAntins.
>

Technically both these statements are true.

There are (and were) several different varieties of bhedabhedavada but 
they all agree that jivatma and paramatma are identical on some level. 
(That's the abheda part.) Where they differ from Advaitavada is that they 
do not think the two are _completely_ equivalent. (That's the bheda part.)

Completely dualistic schools of Vedanta are a relatively recent 
development.  The only dualists in early times were Samkhyas.  It is they 
that Shankaracharya is contrasting with "followers of the Upanishads."


-- 
Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>