Advaita-Chandran

[Shrisha Rao]

On Fri, 26 Feb 1999, VANITHA.KRISHNAMURTHY wrote:

>    When imentioned the advent christianity i was not referring to
> Vasco or his successors, i had really ment syriac church which
> was well established then in west coastand therefore we cannot
> rule out that Madhva was not unaware of christianity.

Quite right; I don't suppose Dr. Hebbar meant to rule that out, although
he did rule out the idea that this "awareness" was the cause of Madhva's
doctrine.

> You mention that Madhva was consistent in quoting scriptures in
> supprt of his doctrine.But my query was how could gita and
> upanishads support both the doctrines-especially when the dvaita
> doctrine is radically differnt from non-dualism?

Simple answer -- it doesn't.  BG II-12 for instance says clearly that
Krishna, Arjuna, and the kings are all eternal, and there could not be a
clearer statement of eternal multiplicity.  The IshAvAsya says that the
world is correctly known by the Lord: yAthAtathyato.arthAn.h
vyadadhAchchhAshvatIbhyaH samAbhyaH -- ruling out the theory that
knowledge of it is illusory.  The 'Gita itself severely criticizes the
proponents of the doctrine of illusion: `asatyamapratishhThaM te
jagadAhuranIshvaram.h' -- this is not a reference to the chArvAka doctrine
as the proponents of that doctrine do accept the reality of the world,
while denying the existence of the otherworld; it is also not a reference
to Buddhist denial of the reality of the world, because even the Buddhists
do admit two kinds of reality, per Nagarjuna's `dve satye samupAshritya
buddhAnAM dharmadeshanA', and these correspond to the Advaitic realities
of world and Brahman -- if the Buddhists be criticized by the verse for
this two-tiered reality, why not the latter?  Lastly, the Brahma Suutra
propounds major tenets of Madhva clearly: `gauNashchennAtmashabdAt.h'
([Brahman is] the embodied, so say you?  No, because the world `Atma' is
used); `bhedavyapadeshAt.h'; `pR^ithagupadeshAt.h'; `vaidharmyAchcha na
svapnAdivat.h' ([the world is] not like a dream, etc., because of its
difference in quality) -- etc.  Not a single sUtra is to be found saying
that the world is illusory, that Brahman is the only Real, etc.  More than
one inconvenient sUtra is considered by Shankara and other commentators as
pUrva-paxa, or has its purport softened or disregarded by resorting to
declarations ex cathedra; this is a rather questionable practice --
imagine what would happen to the Sanskrit language if Panini's grammar
sUtra-s were interpreted in this fashion!

Regards,

Shrisha Rao

> Krish.
>
> On Thu, 25 Feb 1999, Balaji Hebbar wrote:

[*chomp*] -- deleted.