[Advaita-l] Names such as 'Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva' are mithyopadhika - Vishnu Puranam

[V Subrahmanian]

On Tue, Apr 23, 2019 at 1:57 PM Bhaskar YR <bhaskar.yr at in.abb.com> wrote:

> 2. The  Trimurtis are mere names such as Brahma, Vishnu, etc.
> 4. There are no real entities such as Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, and others
> too.
> 8. Even Vishnu of the Trimurtis is only kalpita name/form/sattva guna
>
> praNAms Sri Subbu prabhuji
> Hare Krishna
>
> Not for any debates, just curious to know, how the interpretations like
> above are anything different from nireeshwara vAda of sAnkhya ??  Don’t you
> think by reading the statements like above the neophyte in advaita will
> come to the wrong conclusion that there is no place for bhakti, upAsana of
> Ishwara (saguNa / sOpAdhika brahma) in Advaita and the all deva / devata-s
> are mere imagination of ??? ( I don’t know in whose imagination)  atheism
> is what Advaita propagating here??  Ofcourse, Shruti says : atra deva
> adevAH etc.  this holds good only and only if there is absolute realization
> of abedha ( kshetrajna and ishwara abedha)  even in that realization also
> the 'tattva' behind it is realized by accepting the upAdhi vishesha of
> Ishwara.  By saying all these are mere imagination, we are belittling and
> doubting  the importance of bhakti, upAsana, saguNOpAsana, archana, krama
> mukti etc.
>
> I take your words in reply as your final stand with regard to kalpita
> trimurthy-s / deva-s in Advaita 😊
>

Namaste Bhaskar ji,

The Vishnu Purana has not denied Brahman that is beyond the Trimurti-s. It
only says that the Trimurti-s are non-different from Brahman.  This is
quite in order. Bhakti is done towards that entity, by whatever name it is
called, that is Para Brahman, which is free from vastu-pariccheda.
Shankara, in the very beginning of his bhashya to the Vishnu Sahasra Nama
says for the mangala shloka:

jagatprabhum devadevam anantham purushottamam.....that anantam is trividha
pariccheda shunyam.  Thereby he is making clear that the subject matter of
the VSN is Brahman of this description and not any paricchinna entity
called Vishnu that is different from Brahmaa and Rudra.

So, there is ample room for bhakti towards Brahman through whatever
name/form one might find attractive. Hence it is not atheism.

regards
subbu



>
> Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
> bhaskar
>
>