[Advaita-l] Adhyasa Bhashya - Reflections On Scope And Relevance

[Krishnaprakasha Bolumbu]

Pranamam

To say that “the later acharyas perfected what Shankara only began” is
really a sectarian statement, not a philosophical one. Each of the later
teachers — Ramanuja, Madhva, Vallabha, Nimbarka, and others — certainly
gave their own interpretations of the Brahma Sutras, but always in relation
to the basic framework of Adhyasa that Shankara had already set. Each of
them, in one way or another, takes a position on whether adhyasa is real or
unreal, whether ignorance has a positive existence or is only an absence,
and whether liberation is based on knowledge or on devotion. In that sense,
Shankara’s Adhyasa Bhashya becomes the philosophical ground zero for all
later Vedanta traditions, even for those who disagreed with him.

KP