[Advaita-l] [advaitin] Shri Harsha's Khandana Khanda Khadya (English)

[Raghav Kumar Dwivedula]

I am forwarding to the group as well

On Tue, 27 Jul, 2021, 5:40 pm Vinodh, <vinodh.iitm at gmail.com> wrote:

> True, Raghav-ji, there is no direct relation to tarka or Sriharsha in the
> last part related to Satchidandendra Saraswathi. There is, however, an
> indirect relation. Let me try to explain.
>
> Since logic in itself fails miserably in many respects, the question as to
> how (Advaita) Vedanta reveals the Truth through words naturally arises. It
> is in this context that Satchidandendra Saraswathi explains in his critical
> work on Advaita Vedanta that the shruti indirectly points to the Truth by
> negating everything it is not. He claims that this is the method of the
> Vedanta (of the Upanishads, Gita, Brahma Sutra, and all Advaita Acharyas)
> to reveal the Truth to the seeker; not by direct referring to the Truth
> using words or logic (because it is beyond them, cf. 'yato vaacho
> nivartante'), but rather by negating everything It is not using words and
> logic. Therefore, in this context, what Sriharsha seems to have effectively
> done is to turn logic against itself (just like what Goedel did with
> Mathematics) and show that logic cannot be the means to the Truth.
>
> On Tue, Jul 27, 2021 at 5:16 PM Raghav Kumar Dwivedula <
> raghavkumar00 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Thank you Vinodhji for your reply.
>>
>> I was puzzled only by your last sentence referring to Sri
>> Satchidanandendra Saraswati Ji since there was no obvious connexion with
>> Sri Harsha's text or even the use of tarka etc., generally speaking.
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, 27 Jul, 2021, 3:18 pm Vinodh, <vinodh.iitm at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> It appears that my previous email did not reach the group because of the
>>> large size of the attachment (a screenshot from the book in the original
>>> post). So I’m forwarding just the text below.
>>>
>>> 🙏
>>>
>>> On Tue 27. Jul 2021 at 14:54, Vinodh <vinodh.iitm at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Namaste Raghav ji
>>>>
>>>> Unfortunately, I do not have sufficient knowledge to answer your
>>>> question regarding the historical sequence of texts and the relation to
>>>> other schools of thought.
>>>>
>>>> Perhaps, if I may, I would like to share a couple of things that I
>>>> found very interesting about Sriharsha's work. They are about its relation
>>>> to 20th century logic and about the use of Sriharsha's arguments against
>>>> the Advaitic school of thought itself and how one could possibly reconcile
>>>> this.
>>>>
>>>> 1. Sriharsha's arguments against logic resembles in some way the work
>>>> of the 20th century Logician / Mathematician / Philosopher Kurt Goedel
>>>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Gödel> related to his Incompleteness
>>>> Theorems.
>>>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gödel%27s_incompleteness_theorems> The
>>>> first incompleteness theorem essentially states that is that in any system
>>>> of logic which have axioms (assertions of assumptions about "truth"), there
>>>> will always be statements  that will be true but can never be proved within
>>>> the system. The second theorem essentially states that any system of logic
>>>> cannot prove its own consistency. Reading about Sriharsha's arguments
>>>> against Nyayikas, who are essentially logicians, reminded me of Goedel and
>>>> his Incompleteness theorems. Goedel's theorems dealt a big blow to the
>>>> mathematician community in 1930s because mathematicians seemed to be sure
>>>> that, given a particular statement, it can always be shown to be true or
>>>> false. And what Goedel's incompleteness theorem meant was that there could
>>>> be certain statements, which have neither been proved or disproved for
>>>> centuries and have had entire lives spent on them, may be one of those true
>>>> statements which can never be proved within a system of logic. In a similar
>>>> way, I could imagine that the power of Sriharsha's arguments in his
>>>> Khandana Khanda Khadya could be equally devastating for the Nyayikas.
>>>>
>>>> 2. What I found quite interesting in the Introduction by the translator
>>>> of the Khandana Khada Khadya was a note regarding a rebuttal by Shankara
>>>> Mishra to Sriharsha's arguments by using it against the Vedantin's view.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> With regard to this rebuttal, however, clarity can be obtained by the
>>>> following excerpt from the article on "Is Advaita a framework?"
>>>> <https://adbhutam.files.wordpress.com/2021/07/is-advaita-a-framework.pdf> (which
>>>> you have also noted in another thread):
>>>>
>>>> "It is the folly of someone if he attaches himself with something,
>>>> some 'ism'. Sriharsha, the authorof the 'Khandana-khanda-khAdya' says:
>>>> अभीष्टशसद्धावशप खंडनानांअखशडडराज्ञाशमव नैवमाज्ञा ।
>>>> तताशन कस्मान्न याशभलाषंसैद्धाशन्तके ऽप्यध्वशन योजयध्वम्॥
>>>> [Though what is intended is secured by the arguments refuting the
>>>> other schools, they are not like an edict of a king who is deemed to be
>>>> above it. Therefore, there is no reason as to why they (arguments) may not
>>>> be levelled as desired, even against the path delineated by the siddhAnta.]
>>>> Shankaracharya has said in the adhyAsa bhAshya: All shAstra-s,
>>>> including those directed at teaching the means for moksha, belong to the
>>>> realm of avidya. And that includes
>>>> 'advaita' as a framework."
>>>>
>>>> In the above, Sriharsha himself admits that the arguments for refuting
>>>> the other schools can be levelled as desired even against the Vedantin
>>>> himself.
>>>>
>>>> Therefore, as the shruti says, what can be conveyed by words and
>>>> arguments are only what the Truth is *not* ('na iti, na iti') because
>>>> the Truth is beyond words and imagination ('yato vaacho nivartante apraapya
>>>> manasa saha'), words and imagination being dependent on It and not the
>>>> other way around. Words and the logic that is conveyed by using them are
>>>> only useful in showing that the logic and words are themselves useless in
>>>> expressing the Truth directly. They are only indirectly pointing to the
>>>> Truth, which is beyond any words or logic, by showing what the Truth is
>>>> not. The 20th century Advaitic philosopher Satchidanandendra Saraswati
>>>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satchidanandendra_Saraswati> in his
>>>> work titled Vedanta Prakriya Pratibhijna (translated into English as "The
>>>> Method of the Vedanta: A Critical Account of the Advaita Tradition"
>>>> <https://books.google.co.in/books?id=ZMkbWhjE2M4C&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false>)
>>>> critically examines several Advaitic texts as well as texts from other
>>>> schools of thought and claims that this is the way the shruti shows the
>>>> Truth.
>>>>
>>>> Om tat sat
>>>> 🙏
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, Jul 27, 2021 at 2:33 AM Raghav Kumar Dwivedula via Advaita-l <
>>>> advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Namaste Vinodh ji
>>>>> Thanks for sharing that readable summary of khanDana-khanDa-khAdya
>>>>>
>>>>> Given that the nyAya school is the main pUrvapaxI for Sri Harsha, were
>>>>> there any post-Shankara nyAya texts which particularly analyse and
>>>>> dismiss
>>>>> advaitic assertions. I am aware of pre-Shankara texts of nyAya but not
>>>>> after him.
>>>>>
>>>>> Or is it that the older naiyAyikas just switched allegiance to dvaita
>>>>> as
>>>>> seen in nyAyAmRta etc.?
>>>>>
>>>>> Om
>>>>> Raghav
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Mon, 26 Jul, 2021, 2:03 pm Vinodh via Advaita-l, <
>>>>> advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> > Thank you for sharing the Engilish translation of this wonderful
>>>>> work of
>>>>> > Sriharsha. 🙏
>>>>> >
>>>>> > Here is a summary of the main theme of this work, in which Sriharsha
>>>>> > refutes the views of the Nyaya philosophy (logicians) and
>>>>> establishes the
>>>>> > indefinability of this universe:
>>>>> >
>>>>> >
>>>>> https://www.kamakoti.org/kamakoti/articles/Preceptors%20of%20Advaita%20-%2019.html
>>>>> >
>>>>> > On Sat, Jul 24, 2021 at 11:16 PM V Subrahmanian <
>>>>> v.subrahmanian at gmail.com>
>>>>> > wrote:
>>>>> >
>>>>> > > This is Ganganatha Jha's translation of Shri Harsha's Khandana
>>>>> Khanda
>>>>> > > Khadya.
>>>>> > >
>>>>> > > https://archive.org/details/sriharsha/page/n3/mode/2up
>>>>> > >
>>>>> > > --
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>>>>> > >
>>>>> >
>>>>> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/advaitin/CAKk0Te0ps8iA9TRZQ1ec5D74pMjGBGAMpDjBa2EO0GHsy8XPGg%40mail.gmail.com
>>>>> > > <
>>>>> >
>>>>> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/advaitin/CAKk0Te0ps8iA9TRZQ1ec5D74pMjGBGAMpDjBa2EO0GHsy8XPGg%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer
>>>>> > >
>>>>> > > .
>>>>> > >
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