Dvaita and Sophistry - Part 3(Inherent natures of jivas)

kalyan chakravarthy kalyan_kc at HOTMAIL.COM
Wed Apr 2 12:39:03 CST 2003


Namaskaaram,

What does Dvaita say about Mundaka Upanishad 2.2.4?

>note, do not accept the distinction of ritualistic versus Vedantic)
>explicitly reject Sri Sankara's explanation of `AtmA' as referring to a
>second body; instead, the word is read as referring to
>Chaturmukha-Brahma, who is a "second AtmA," the first being Vishnu who is
>the primary referent for the word, and from whom Brahma gets the epithet
>in a secondary sense (just as Vayu also is given the epithet of `Brahman'

1.Just for the sake of interest, second in what sense?

2.Observe that you have said "second AtmA" and not "second to the AtmA". In
the latter case I would agree if you say that AtmA here means Vishnu. But in
the former case, the AtmA should refer to Chaturmukha-Brahma only. Dont you
feel so?

>However, in Vedanta, important epithets like `AtmA', or even verbs like
>`gachchhanti', do have standard meanings that do not change;

As far as the word gachchhanti is concerned, the standard meaning does not
necessarily show an eternal transit. Even in day to day usage this is true.
( gachchhAmi, for instance does not indicate that I am not going to come
back.)

Best Regards
Kalyan




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