[Advaita-l] Partlessness of Brahman and Maya

Venkatraghavan S agnimile at gmail.com
Fri Jun 21 14:16:58 EDT 2019


Namaste Bhaskar ji,
As I said, it is not certain whether it is one and the same
gauDapAdAchArya. The author of the sAnkhya kArika bhAShya has clearly
commented it from the perspective of sAnkhya. However, that in itself does
not rule out the same person authoring two works from different darshana-s,
and doing so in a fairly objective and impartial manner. In fact, that is a
mark of the quality of a scholar - when they are arguing from one
darshana's position, they do so without prejudice and do full justice to
the system under consideration.

For example, vAcaspati miSra wrote tattvakaumudi from the perspective of
sAnkhya, bhAmati from the perspective of advaita, tattva vaiSAradi from the
perspective of yoga, nyAya sUcI nibandha and nyAya vArttika tAtparya TIkA
from the perspective of nyAya, in addition to nyAyakaNikA and tattvabindu
from the perspective of pUrva mImAmsa. It is unsurprising therefore that he
was conferred the epithet, sarvatantra svatantra. Normally that means a
thorough knowledge of all systems, but in his case, that name was quite
appropriate from another perspective too. On reading his works, it appears
that every tantra is his own.

Coming back to gauDapAda, personally I feel that (and this is just based on
a "feeling", not anything objective) the author of the sAnkhya kArika
bhAShya is different from the author of the mANDUkya kArika. The economy of
expression and the profundity of thoughts in the mANDUkya kArika is somehow
missing in the sAnkhya kArika bhAShya.

Kind regards,
Venkatraghavan

On Fri, Jun 21, 2019 at 11:14 AM Bhaskar YR <bhaskar.yr at in.abb.com> wrote:

> gauDapAda in his *sAnkhya kArikA bhAShya*, uses the term "*aguNa*" for the
> puruSha, but the meaning is the same as the term nirguNa, ie one where the
> triguNa-s are absent. Now, it is not certain whether the author of this
> bhAShya is the same gauDapAda as the author of the mANDUkya kArika-s.
>
> praNAms Sri Venkatraghavan prabhuji
> Hare Krishna
>
> Just a curious question at the risk of digression from the main topic
> being discussed here.  Is this sAnkhya kArika bhAshya written by  Acharya
> (Sri gaudapAda (??) from Advaita sampradaya?? Is yes, as we know, pradhAna
> malla sAnkhya is  most of the times pUrvapaxi to Advaita. (paramataM
> apratishiddham anumatam bhavati...but quite a rare occasion is it not??)
>  If the bhAshya is written to this kArika by some Advaita sampradaya
> Acharya  then it must be with one of the following agendas : To defend and
> explain the kArika-s in line with sAnkhya school of thought or refute it
> from vedAnta perspective or trying to explain the sAnkhya theory in line
> with vedAnta.  What was  the intention of sAnkhya kArika bhAshya author
> here??  Since I am not familiar with this work, asking this query.
>
> Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
> bhaskar
>
>
>


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