[Advaita-l] [advaitin] 'Dvaita accepts body-adhyasa'

[Srinath Vedagarbha]

Sri. Vinodh-ji,

On Sat, Oct 16, 2021 at 7:41 AM Vinodh via Advaita-l <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

>
> Sri Prasadji, your explanation seems to be the most convincing I have been
> able to find so far and it is not very different from how Sri
> Chandrashekara Saraswathi puts it in one of his discourses. It is because
> of the dvaitis strong desire to hold on to dvaita to be able to separate
> themselves as Jivas from Paramatma in order to worship Him with bhakti,
> that their intellect has construed the philosophy of dvaita. And because of
> their bhakti and their desire to serve the Lord, the Lord has given them
> the ability to so through their intellect. Due to their strong bhakti,
> their mind is unable to qualitatively equate the atma of the Jiva with the
> atma of the Paramatma (even as the Vishtadvaitins do), much less claim
> their identity.
>

 Your understanding on Dvaitin's position is not correct.
Their  strong bhakti is a result of AFTER analysis adhyAsa. It is not the
other way, bhakti is the reason for interpreting dehAtma adhyasa prakriya.

In the very acceptance of dehAtma adhyasa as a fact, the pramAtR^itva of
the Self is implicitly accepted. Otherwise the question would be for whom
this adhyAsa is happening? It cannot be for the body as it is jaDa. Hence,
when one talks about adhyAsa, the pramAtR^itva of the Self is quite
evident. Given this underlying fact, denying reality to
pramANa/pramAtR^itva  wholesale is quite self negating. If the very
reality to the world and its pramANa/pramAtR^itva transaction is denied,
one has to deny the very dehAtma prakriya itself. In that case, this
dehAtma adhyAsa should be treated  as another adhyAsa itself. The same
question applies. This would lead you to infinite regress (anavastha).
Hence, the pramAtR^itva to the Self must be accepted. Dvaitins accepts
pramAtR^itva to jIva in terms of it being sAxi. Shree Shankara denys
pramAtR^itva to the Self. Please refer his commentary on the BU2.4.14 -- na
cha agneriva AtmA Atmani viShayaH: (The Self is not an object of knowledge
for the Self)

There is one more argument -- the adhyAsa presupposes the knowledge of
existence of Self which is separate from the mind-body complex. That
knowledge is not self-evident but has to be deduced from a pramANa. For us
all vedAntin, shurti plays that role. If I were to be a chAruvAka, I would
not even accept there is such a thing as dehAtma adhyAsa because I do not
accept Atma. Given this, if shruti is accepted as the source of knowledge
about self, how could you deny the reality to the pramANatvaM to shruti and
pramAtR^itva to sAdhaka at the end of your adhyAsa analysis?

For Dvaitis, acceptance of reality to anantAma is quite straight forward.
Given that we experience dehAtma adhyasa, there is no bAdhaka experience on
the reality of deha itself. Given that we all (both Advaitins and Dvaitins
alike) accept the doctrine of pramANya svatsvaM, if deha (and world at
alrage) is experienced as existing, it definitely does exist as real.

/sv