[Advaita-l] Was Shankaracharya a Vaishnava??

[V Subrahmanian]

Here is an example for Shankara holding 'Vasudeva' to be non-different from
the one who realizes That:

युक्तः समाहितः सन् आसीत मत्परः अहं वासुदेवः सर्वप्रत्यगात्मा परो यस्य सः
मत्परः, ‘न अन्योऽहं तस्मात्’ इति…  Bhagavadgita 2.61:

तानि सर्वाणि संयम्य युक्त आसीत मत्परः ।
वशे हि यस्येन्द्रियाणि तस्य प्रज्ञा प्रतिष्ठिता ॥ ६१ ॥

The Bhashya passage says: Bhagavan says the one who is on the way to
acquiring the aparoksha jnanam would have Me, Vasudeva, the innermost Self
(beyond the five koshas), to be his Supreme goal. This translates as 'I am
not different from Him' (in other words, 'I am Vasudeva') at the
aspirant-end.

Thus, the identity with Vasudeva is stated by Shankara.  Such an idea is
anathema to non-Advaitins.

regards
subbu

On Sun, Jun 14, 2020 at 8:56 PM V Subrahmanian <v.subrahmanian at gmail.com>
wrote:

>
>
> On Sun, Jun 14, 2020 at 2:30 PM Venkatraghavan S via Advaita-l <
> advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:
>
>> Namaste Raghav ji,
>> "So the word nArAyaNa used by Shri Shankara shows that he is not a
>> vaiShNava."
>>
>> I suppose it depends on what the word vaiShNava means.
>>
>> If it means someone who believes that Brahman has form, we too are
>> vaishNavas for we too agree that Brahman takes on the form that is dear to
>> the upAsaka to bless him.
>>
>> However, we don't stop there. We say that all that exists is that viShNu
>> alone. Therefore, anything that appears to be different from Him, we hold
>> not to be real. The appearance of difference is merely that, an
>> appearance.
>> When we, who say that all that exists is that mahAviShNu, how can we be
>> termed a-vaiShNava?
>>
>
> In Bh.Gita:
>
> यान्ति देवव्रता देवान्पितॄन्यान्ति पितृव्रताः ।
> भूतानि यान्ति भूतेज्या यान्ति मद्याजिनोऽपि माम् ॥ २५ ॥
>
> In this bhashya:  यान्ति मद्याजिनः मद्यजनशीलाः वैष्णवाः मामेव यान्ति ।
>
> Some non-advaitins show this bhashyam and question: Look Shankara has
> accepted that 'Vaishnava-s' are the ones that attain the Supreme, even
> though the shloka does not use that term.
>
> To this I reply: the Vaishnava-s that Shankara is meaning are not the ones
> that you mean: For Shankara 'attaining to the Lord' is Brahma atma aikya
> jnanam and not going to that loka and residing with the formed Bhagavan.
>
>
>
>>
>> Who is anyone to say we are not one with Ishvara?
>>
>
> As you say, the  Advaitic 'Vaishnava' is non-different from Vishnu, the
> Vyaapana shiila, and not an entity that has a form by default and someone
> who is ever different from everything else in creation. So, the concept of
> vastu pariccheda raahityam is also embedded in Shankara's idea of
> Vishnu/vaishnava.
>
> regards
> subbu
>
>>
>> Regards,
>> Venkatraghavan
>>
>>
>>
>>