/lit/ - Literature

>>21597675
>start reading the Indian philosophers
>they're great
>get onto Advaita Vedanta and the works of Shankara
>almost all their critiques of Buddhism are on-point and perfectly sound

wtf

>"No one, they (Buddhists) claim, can possibly deny this chain of causation (Pratītyasamutpāda) beginning with nescience. And once the whole causal chain beginning with nescience is admitted to exist, and to be revolving continually like a wheel with buckets at a well, it is found to imply that the formation of aggregates must be possible. But this is not right, as the causes so far mentioned lead to production (of the next effect in the series) only (and not to aggregation of any kind). An aggregate could be admitted if an intelligible cause were assigned for it. But it is not. Nescience and the rest may cause one another mutually in your cycle, but they only cause the rise of the next link in the chain. There is nothing to show that anything could be the cause of an aggregate. True, you claimed that if nescience and the rest were admitted, an aggregate was necessarily implied.

>To this, however, we reply as follows. If you mean that nescience and the rest cannot arise except in the presence of some aggregate and so are dependent on it, then you still have to explain what could be the cause of the aggregate. Now, we have already shown in the course of our criticism of the Vaisesikas that aggregation is unintelligible even when supported by such assumptions as that of the existence of eternal atoms along with eternal individual experiencers who serve as permanent loci for the conservation of the effects of past action. So it will be all the less intelligible in a theory in which only atoms of momentary existence are admitted, without any permanent experiencer or any permanent locus for anything. If the Buddhist now claims that it is this causal chain beginning with nescience that is the cause of aggregation, we ask how this causal chain (pratītyasamutpāda) could ever be the cause of aggregation (of its constituents into a united whole that can produce nescience etc) when it (the chain) depends on (that) aggregation for its own existence?

The Advaita vs Madhyamaka debates are the best on /lit/. It's like seeing Parmenides and Heraclitus have a debate.

Is everything oneness or noneness?
If noneness then it's something therefore oneness.
If oneness then it's meaningless therefore noneness.

The best part is when the resident Dvaita and Theravada come in, shit on the discussion, then leave.

And the resident coping christfag comes in and seethe's about Guénon and extolls about orthodoxy. He's a funny creature.

But overall in the end, I respect both despite disagreements. The discussions are always fun.

>>20352064

>To those who studied the great teachings of Sankara, the philosophies of Kanada and Kapila seemed childish; the Saiva doctrines looked unholy; the Sakta teachings appeared perverse; the Vaishnava creeds sounded self-contradictory; and the Buddhistic philosophies looked contemptible. The teachings of all these schools appeared as mere fairy tales, and not serious philosophic thought. As Sankara continued his merciless refutation of all hostile creeds and philosophies, the teachings of the Tathagata became lifeless, the school of Kumarila became silent, the Naiyayika philosophy became weak and paralysed, and Kapila's system also followed suit.

>ITT