[Advaita-l] [advaitin] Understanding Srimad Bhagavad Gita from the perspectives of Visishtadvaita and Advaita - an exposition

[Bhaskar YR]

praNAms Sri Vikram prabhuji
Hare Krishna

To provide more context, I am born a SriVaishnava and belong to Visishtadvaita sampradhayam. However philosophically I am aligned with Advaita.



  *   Nice to know that, our Sri Sadananda prabhuji, Sri Suresh prabhuji too are Sri vaishNava-s and Sri Suresh prabhuji very often tries to strike a similarity between Advaita and vishishtAdvaita.

With a deeper understanding of both the perspectives, I believe the teachings of the great acharyas are actually quite aligned (except for the criticisms which are figuratively apples versus oranges).


  *   Do you mean to say Sri rAmAnuja’s Sri bhAshya and vedAnta deshikar’s shata dUshAni etc. don’t aware of this alignment, have this clarity and hence taken Advaita as pUrvapaxi for refutation??

In a local setting, we just started an initiative to discuss Srimad Bhagavad Gita based on both perspectives - Swami Ramanujacharya's bhashya and Swami Sankaracharya's bhashya.


  *   Perhaps it is possible to see some similarity here as geeta is smruti prasthAna and both Acharya-s talk a lot about bhagavad bhakti, sharaNagati, IshwarAnugraha etc.  But when it comes to shruti and nyAya prasthAna I don’t think it is that much easy.

It is my strong conviction that without a clear understanding of the fundamentals of both sampradayam, a comparative or relative study will end up creating more confusion than illumining clear directions. This is because of root-level differences regarding the nature of bondage, ignorance, knowledge and liberation.


  *   Don’t you think above are the basic tenets of any school of thought to decide the very nature of respective siddhAnta?? If there is difference of opinion with regard to knowledge and liberation what to talk about other things!!??

When explained within the right context, there is definite self-consistency and cohesiveness of both philosophies. The attempt of this article is also to provide these minimalistic fundamentals that will enable a clearer understanding of SBG in different perspectives.

>  IMO it is better to get the opinion of traditional acharya-s from both schools of thought before trying to find any similarity between the schools.  I reckon Advaita is more flexible and could accommodate different doctrines based on adhikAra bedha and vyAvahArika satya and I really doubt other dualistic school acharya-s would agree to the contention that Advaita vedAnta is the parama siddhAnta of vedAnta.

Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
bhaskar