[Advaita-l] [advaitin] Shri Harsha's Khandana Khanda Khadya (English)

[V Subrahmanian]

On Tue, Aug 3, 2021 at 10:38 PM Praveen R. Bhat via Advaita-l <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

> Namaste Jaldharji,
>
> On Tue, Aug 3, 2021 at 9:35 PM Jaldhar H. Vyas via Advaita-l <
> advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > Yes Nyaya was dualistic from the beginning but as I mentioned before it
> > was predominantly Shaiva dvaita at first and only Vaishnava dvaita later
> > on.
>

Yes, even I have read that the Supreme Ishwara in Nyaya-Vaisheshika is
Shiva.  In the Sankshepa shaariraka of Sarvajnatman there is a 'comparison'
of the Ishwara of the Nyaya-vaisheshika and the Ishwara of Vedanta.
Sarvajnatman says that the latter is superior to the former.  The idea is:
for the Vaisheshika the Ishwara is kevala nimitta kArNam as opposed to the
ubhaya kAraNatvam of the Vedantin. This way, the latter alone can be
admitted to be Sarvajna and not the former.  So goes the discussion which
would appear to the casual reader to mean: Vishnu is superior to Shiva.
However, on a closer scrutiny, considering the kevala nimitta, etc. aspect,
the truth can be deciphered: Sarvajnatman is not making a compare-contrast
between Shiva and Vishnu per se; he is only showing that the former, if
kevala nimitta karana, can't be the Sarvajna that is ubhaya kAraNam.

The above offers a  clue to Shankara's handling the Pashupata Mata, where
too their Ishwara is kevala nimitta kAranam.  In the next Pancharatra
school discussion, Vasudeva is both nimitta and upAdAna as per Shankara.
Some who have not noticed the subtle difference, obviously wrongly
conclude: Shankara has  clearly differentiated between Shiva and Vishnu,
favoring the latter.

regards
subbu

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