Buddhism and Self

[Jaldhar H. Vyas]

On Wed, 17 Sep 1997, Gregory Goode wrote:

> Are these two statements consistent with each other, or did I misread
> who said them?
>
> At 08:38 AM 9/17/97 -0600, Nanda Kumar wrote:
>
> (1)
>
>    >However you define it, if Advaitam isn't orthodox Hindu philosophy,
>    >nothing is. In Advaitam, the shruti is considered the final authority
> and so
>    >discussion on Advaitam would definitely reflect orthodox Hindu thought.
>
>
> (2)
>
>    >Does it really matter how anybody defines Advaitam? Truth is Truth,
>    >whatever the definition.
>
> I'm asking for the purpose of being clear about our terms.  There are 2 major
> implicit definitions I've seen of advaita.  One is the shruti-based (or to
> a lesser extent, shruti-and-smrti-based) definition, with sources
> consisting of Upanishads, the Brahmasutra, and the Bhagavadgita.  Richard
> King,
> in EARLY ADVAITA VEDANTA AND BUDDHISM (SUNY Press, 1995) is a good example
> of a user of this definition, see p. 51.  Not sure, but I take it that
> there is also
> a living lineage coming from Shankaracharya, with ashrams (10?, 12?) in
> India today.  Is this an orthodoxy?
>

The living lineage of Shankaracharya must number in the 10's or 100's of
thousands.  Not all of them in India either.  And even though it is
considered a dirty word by some people Advaita Vedanta is an orthodoxy.

> The other definition of advaita that seems to be current today is

wrong.

--
Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>
I got engaged! See the pictures ==> http://www.braincells.com/jaldhar/sagpan