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

[Vinodh]

It appears that my previous email did not reach the group because of the
large size of the attachment (a screenshot from the book in the original
post). So I’m forwarding just the text below.

🙏

On Tue 27. Jul 2021 at 14:54, Vinodh <vinodh.iitm at gmail.com> wrote:

> Namaste Raghav ji
>
> Unfortunately, I do not have sufficient knowledge to answer your question
> regarding the historical sequence of texts and the relation to other
> schools of thought.
>
> Perhaps, if I may, I would like to share a couple of things that I found
> very interesting about Sriharsha's work. They are about its relation to
> 20th century logic and about the use of Sriharsha's arguments against the
> Advaitic school of thought itself and how one could possibly reconcile
> this.
>
> 1. Sriharsha's arguments against logic resembles in some way the work of
> the 20th century Logician / Mathematician / Philosopher Kurt Goedel
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Gödel> related to his Incompleteness
> Theorems.
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gödel%27s_incompleteness_theorems> The
> first incompleteness theorem essentially states that is that in any system
> of logic which have axioms (assertions of assumptions about "truth"), there
> will always be statements  that will be true but can never be proved within
> the system. The second theorem essentially states that any system of logic
> cannot prove its own consistency. Reading about Sriharsha's arguments
> against Nyayikas, who are essentially logicians, reminded me of Goedel and
> his Incompleteness theorems. Goedel's theorems dealt a big blow to the
> mathematician community in 1930s because mathematicians seemed to be sure
> that, given a particular statement, it can always be shown to be true or
> false. And what Goedel's incompleteness theorem meant was that there could
> be certain statements, which have neither been proved or disproved for
> centuries and have had entire lives spent on them, may be one of those true
> statements which can never be proved within a system of logic. In a similar
> way, I could imagine that the power of Sriharsha's arguments in his
> Khandana Khanda Khadya could be equally devastating for the Nyayikas.
>
> 2. What I found quite interesting in the Introduction by the translator of
> the Khandana Khada Khadya was a note regarding a rebuttal by Shankara
> Mishra to Sriharsha's arguments by using it against the Vedantin's view.
>
>
>
> With regard to this rebuttal, however, clarity can be obtained by the
> following excerpt from the article on "Is Advaita a framework?"
> <https://adbhutam.files.wordpress.com/2021/07/is-advaita-a-framework.pdf> (which
> you have also noted in another thread):
>
> "It is the folly of someone if he attaches himself with something,
> some 'ism'. Sriharsha, the authorof the 'Khandana-khanda-khAdya' says:
> अभीष्टशसद्धावशप खंडनानांअखशडडराज्ञाशमव नैवमाज्ञा ।
> तताशन कस्मान्न याशभलाषंसैद्धाशन्तके ऽप्यध्वशन योजयध्वम्॥
> [Though what is intended is secured by the arguments refuting the
> other schools, they are not like an edict of a king who is deemed to be
> above it. Therefore, there is no reason as to why they (arguments) may not
> be levelled as desired, even against the path delineated by the siddhAnta.]
> Shankaracharya has said in the adhyAsa bhAshya: All shAstra-s,
> including those directed at teaching the means for moksha, belong to the
> realm of avidya. And that includes
> 'advaita' as a framework."
>
> In the above, Sriharsha himself admits that the arguments for refuting the
> other schools can be levelled as desired even against the Vedantin himself.
>
> Therefore, as the shruti says, what can be conveyed by words and arguments
> are only what the Truth is *not* ('na iti, na iti') because the Truth is
> beyond words and imagination ('yato vaacho nivartante apraapya manasa
> saha'), words and imagination being dependent on It and not the other way
> around. Words and the logic that is conveyed by using them are only useful
> in showing that the logic and words are themselves useless in expressing
> the Truth directly. They are only indirectly pointing to the Truth, which
> is beyond any words or logic, by showing what the Truth is not. The 20th
> century Advaitic philosopher Satchidanandendra Saraswati
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satchidanandendra_Saraswati> in his work
> titled Vedanta Prakriya Pratibhijna (translated into English as "The
> Method of the Vedanta: A Critical Account of the Advaita Tradition"
> <https://books.google.co.in/books?id=ZMkbWhjE2M4C&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false>)
> critically examines several Advaitic texts as well as texts from other
> schools of thought and claims that this is the way the shruti shows the
> Truth.
>
> Om tat sat
> 🙏
>
> On Tue, Jul 27, 2021 at 2:33 AM Raghav Kumar Dwivedula via Advaita-l <
> advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:
>
>> Namaste Vinodh ji
>> Thanks for sharing that readable summary of khanDana-khanDa-khAdya
>>
>> Given that the nyAya school is the main pUrvapaxI for Sri Harsha, were
>> there any post-Shankara nyAya texts which particularly analyse and dismiss
>> advaitic assertions. I am aware of pre-Shankara texts of nyAya but not
>> after him.
>>
>> Or is it that the older naiyAyikas just switched allegiance to dvaita as
>> seen in nyAyAmRta etc.?
>>
>> Om
>> Raghav
>>
>>
>>
>> On Mon, 26 Jul, 2021, 2:03 pm Vinodh via Advaita-l, <
>> advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:
>>
>> > Thank you for sharing the Engilish translation of this wonderful work of
>> > Sriharsha. 🙏
>> >
>> > Here is a summary of the main theme of this work, in which Sriharsha
>> > refutes the views of the Nyaya philosophy (logicians) and establishes
>> the
>> > indefinability of this universe:
>> >
>> >
>> https://www.kamakoti.org/kamakoti/articles/Preceptors%20of%20Advaita%20-%2019.html
>> >
>> > On Sat, Jul 24, 2021 at 11:16 PM V Subrahmanian <
>> v.subrahmanian at gmail.com>
>> > wrote:
>> >
>> > > This is Ganganatha Jha's translation of Shri Harsha's Khandana Khanda
>> > > Khadya.
>> > >
>> > > https://archive.org/details/sriharsha/page/n3/mode/2up
>> > >
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>> > > <
>> >
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>> > > .
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