[Advaita-l] Regarding the Pancharatra, Shankara is one with Purvamimamsa

[Srinath Vedagarbha]

On Thu, Jul 19, 2018 at 7:44 AM V Subrahmanian via Advaita-l <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

>
> For Shankara, according to the Brahma
> sutras, all schools that accept multiple souls, absolute reality of world,
> etc. are un-vedantic.



This is case of Shankara not knowing and aware of the very background in
which the very B.sUtras were written. As I quoted earlier skanda-purANa
about such background, one has to see what svayam Bhagavan Veda-Vyasa
Himself has to say about what exactly was the philosophy during the period
of Krta/trEta/dvapara youga-s.

Madhva also quotes nArayaNa saMhita (in his AtharvaNa bhAshya) about the
same topic ;

krtE bhAgavatAtsarvE vEdaccha puruShAstadhA | trEtAyAM bhinnaviShayAH
tatastrai vidhyAtAM batAH | tasmAdEkaH sarva vEdai
jnEyO vishNuH sanAtanaH | pUjyO yajnyEH sOpachAraidhyEyO vaMdhyaccha
sarvadA || -- ityAdi nArAyaNasamhitAm

(crude translation – In Krta yuga, since all sadakas are bhagvat bhakatas,
all vEda-s are bhagavat pratipAdaka only. In trEta, since some sAdakas have
other interest (other than vishNu), vEdas will bring jnyAna in other
subjects for them. However, since all vEdas have mukhya tAtparya in vishNu
only in all yugas, one has to do worship sanAthana vishNu with all vEdas
only)

So, it is suffice to say at least from textual evidence, non-duality was
definitely not the doctrine from the beginning. Of course, there is always
a chance these evidences are forgotten during Shankara's time and hence he
felt doctrine of duality is unvedic.

/sv