[Advaita-l] The Mundakopanishat and Madhusudana Saraswati

[Srinath Vedagarbha]

On Wed, Jun 6, 2018 at 10:16 PM V Subrahmanian via Advaita-l <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

>
> >
> > 1. See duality of aspirants needing help?. More precisely, does Brahman
> > perceive duality of Itself and aspirants struck and needing help. If yes,
> > such Brahman is not ultimate Brahman as avidya lesha is still with it. If
> > you say NB does not perceive duality, then there is no question of taking
> > forms of various Istadevata. All talks about Brahmn taking various forms
> > are with in vyavahara dristi and hence avidya dristi.
> >
>
> Yes, the last view is correct. Avidya drishti is not invalid in advaita,
> for srishti, veda, sadhana, moksha, etc. are all in that vyavahara only.
>
>
Why is avidya dristi is not invalid? If so, then all the knowledge in this
vyavahAra must be treated as valid, including the perceived snake on the
rope. Why only Vedanta is valid? why not non-vedantic doctorines? Why
Shankara has to refute so many pUrva-paxas? There is no criteria to
differentiate between validity and invalidity.



> The verse cited is of Madhusudana Saraswati. He says that all the various
> upasakas of various deities, holding those deities to be the Supreme, are
> aiming at that One Supreme only.
> This view is possible only in Advaita and not any other.
>

It may be possible only in Advaita PROVIDED such Supreme Being is;
1. Capable of taking various forms  (rUpam rUpam pratIrUpaM babhUva etc.)
2. Being anteryamin of various deities.
3. VaidIka shabda-s denoting deities such as 'Vishnu','Rudra','Ganapathi'
etc are indeed refer to that Supreme Being. Brahman should not be said to
be avAvachya etc.
4. Last but not least -- names and forms are really real and not mithya.
(and many more criteria)

None of such requirements applies to Supreme Being as conceived in Advaita.
Hence, the claim is quite questionable.

/sv