[Advaita-l] vedAntins at the time of shankara

[Jaldhar H. Vyas]

Sorry for the late reply.

On Fri, 15 Sep 2017, Kalyan via Advaita-l wrote:

>
> I agree. Strict dualism in vedAnta is relatively new. One of the views 
> floating around here is that post-advaitic rival vedAntic schools were 
> caused by the difference in the views among the advaitins. I don't know 
> how far this is true.

I don't agree.  Vaishnavism and  and Shaivism had a long independent 
history.  One of the arguments that Shankaracharya makes in the 
chaturvyuhadhikarana is that the pancharatra agamas are non-Vedic 
therefore non-authoritative.  At some later point there was an effort made 
to align themselves with Vedanta.  For instance it is Yamuna the 
predecessor of Ramanuja who attempts to make the case that pancharatra 
agamas are Vedic (i.e. Vedantic.)

>
> The way I see it, the advent of these new rival vedAntic schools is 
> probably due to a theistic reaction to the perceived non-theism of 
> advaita. Neither sAmkhya nor early bhedAbheda were theistic. The new 
> vedAntic schools came to fill in the theistic gap.
>

Again I disagree.  Somewhat anyway. If we restrict Samkhya to 
Ishvarakrishna then yes it is non-theistic but theistic samkhya can be 
found in the bhagavadgita, mokshadharma and elsewhere in itihasa/puranas. 
And what is Yoga if not Samkhya + Ishvara?

However it should be conceded that the Samkhya concept of Ishvara is not 
acceptable to Vedantins of any stripe.



-- 
Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>