[Advaita-l] "One subjectivity" and "No creation" reference to Advaita

[Vinodh]

Namaskaram,

This my understanding on the similarity and difference between Buddhist
nihilism (sunyavaadam) and Advaitam.

They both claim that this world is illusory and this is the similarity
between these two systems. However, Buddhist nihilism claims that
everything seems to comes out of nothing (sunya) whereas Advaita says that
there is something (brahmam or atma) out of which everything seems to
appear.

The Advaitic argument against the Buddhist nihilist view is that there has
to be something as a base for any illusion, like a rope for the illusory
snake or a conch for the illusory silver or a tree stump for an illusory
man. An illusion cannot come out of nothing. There is something that exists
which just appears as something else. It is not that nothing exists and
still something seems to appear like the Buddhist view claims.

An interesting Buddhist counterpoint I have heard is from the Chandyoga
Upanishad Shankara bhashya in the 6th adhyaya (also called “satvidya”) in
the context of the following two sruti statements:

सदेव सोम्येदमग्र आसीदेकमेवाद्वितीयम् । तद्धैक आहुरसदेवेदमग्र
आसीदेकमेवाद्वितीयं तस्मादसतः सज्जायत ॥ ६.२.१ ॥

sadeva somyedamagra āsīdekamevādvitīyam | taddhaika āhurasadevedamagra
āsīdekamevādvitīyaṃ tasmādasataḥ sajjāyata || 6.2.1 ||

1. Somya, before this world was manifest there was only existence, one
without a second. On this subject, some maintain that before this world was
manifest there was only non-existence, one without a second. Out of that
non-existence, existence emerged.

The sruti itself posits both these views and asserts that the second view
corresponding to Buddhist nihilism is invalid.

In Shankara’s bhashya, a Buddhist nihilist objection is raised and replied
to where the objection goes something like this. We all see that a seed has
to be completely destroyed in order for a tree to grow from it. So
according to them this is an example of something coming from nothing.
Shankaracharya argues that only the form of the seed is lost but the
material goes to make the tree, because the essence of the type of tree
(mango or neem etc) is in the seed. Otherwise any tree can grow from any
seed. Therefore he says that there is no example of something coming out of
nothing.



On Mon 27. Sep 2021 at 19:51, Kaushik Chevendra via Advaita-l <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

> Namaste sir.
> As you have pointed out that the main dissimilarity between buddhism and av
> is that av is vedic tradition. Just as a judge's verdict is alone
> justice,and a commoners verdict even though inline with the judge's view
> isn't justice,mithyatva of jagat should be understood through shruthi vakya
> only.
>
> On Mon, 27 Sep, 2021, 5:04 pm Bhaskar YR, <
> bhaskar.yr at hitachi-powergrids.com>
> wrote:
>
> > praNAms
> >
> > Hare Krishna
> >
> >
> >
> >    - Kindly pardon me, I don’t want to go deep into it as my knowledge in
> >    Buddhism is quite poor (almost nil) and what I read about buddhism is
> only
> >    what is available in advaita works😊  So cannot authoritatively say
> >    anything about doctrine of Buddhism according to their accepted
> authentic
> >    works.  If I am right, even in the Buddhism also they will accept the
> >    existence (astitvaM).  The existence of shUnyatvaM.  And in
> vijnAnavAda too
> >    they accept the existence of constructive imagination of external
> object by
> >    chitta (mind).  The kArikAkAra too attributes the existence of
> external
> >    objects to kampana (vibration) of chitta.  Samanvaya needs to be done
> with
> >    the help of shruti, yukti and anubhava.
> >
> >
> >
> > Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
> >
> > bhaskar
> >
> >
> >
> > Namaste sir.
> >
> > You have given quite an excellent response. From your post it seems to be
> > that the dualists contention is true. Probably the scholars will have to
> > shed light on this.
> >
> > In my opinion the difference between the shunya and brahman is existence.
> > In the sense that shunya is absence of anything. Whereas in av there is
> > absence of anything other than brahman.
> >
> >
> >
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