/lit/ - Literature

The edition I have been reading

>>17865125
>Why does Ramanuja get comparatively so little love on /lit/ compared to Shankara and Advaita?
I think it is because there is comparatively less books written about Vishishtadvaita that are published in English and other western languages, and less of its texts have been translated into western languages. Also because of the Traditionalist school which engaged with and rooted itself in Advaita more than Vishishtadvaita.

According to the professor Francis X. Clooney, S.J., there is a much more extensive history of Christian engagement with Advaita by Christian scholars, writers, officials etc going back to the 17th or 18th century, in comparison to the relatively limited engagement with other Vedanta schools by Christian scholars, even though the other Vedanta schools often are closer to Christian doctrine than Advaita is.

I enjoy both Shankara's and Ramanuja's writings. It is too bad that Ramanuja never wrote any Upanishad commentaries. I plan to eventually order and read through a copy of Ranga Ramanuja Muni's Vishishtadvaita Upanishad commentaries once I figure out how to purchase them on the Indian websites selling them, I can't find them on any site that prices them in dollars.

>>17865125
>Why does Ramanuja get comparatively so little love on /lit/ compared to Shankara and Advaita?
Because Vishistadvaita is not engaged with philosophically, practitioners devote themselves with bhakti. Advaita is a much more philosophically-centered school.

>>17865125
Simple, Shankara and advaita are more suitable as vehicles for new age marxist bs, subjective relativism and radical universalism. Just go on youtube and see how many results you find for regular vedanta like Ramanuja compared to this new age version of shankara. They are promoting this stuff on purpose.

If you are interested in vedic philosophy stick with what is tried, orthodox and true:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIk0ZV1L_u4

>>17865503
take your meds

>>17865573
just watch the lecture:
>>17865503
and you'll understand if you're IQ is high enough.

>>17865598
>just watch the lecture
I will, just because i'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. If he has worthy ideas I'm willing to continue a discussion about it, maybe make a new thread if this one dies.

>>17865503
>Shankara and advaita are more suitable as vehicles for new age marxist bs, subjective relativism and radical universalism.
That is a misapplication or misunderstanding of the tenets of Advaita and doesn't reflect those values being being accepted in any way by traditional Advaita, which they are not. Shankara in his works affirms the goodness of the Vedic system of caste and ashramas, and him and Ramanuja alike in their Brahma Sutra commentaries both say that Shudras are supposed to be prohibited from studying the Vedas. Shankara adds that they can study and follow the Smriti texts like the Gita and Puranas instead.

>>17865753
>That is a misapplication or misunderstanding of the tenets of Advaita and doesn't reflect those values being being accepted in any way by traditional Advaita
Yes, you are right, but these new age gurus like sadhguru, vivekananda, tadatmananda, etc dont care about that. For them it's only about satisfying the greater political agenda of their patrons.

>>17865867
I have only watched a few of his videos so I don't know him or his take on advaita very well, but what makes you see tadatmananda as new age?

>>17865503
Sri Dharma Pravartaka Acharya is a great man.

>>17866057
indeed, that is the case. Very good. Now, with that. Let us begin.

>>17865503
>retards still shilling this mutt cause he appeared on Survive the Jive

>>17866206
Hello fellow /fascist/. I hope you know we are 16chan now

>>17866215
yes, he fell for the Q meme and got roped into controlled opposition. He may be naive but he's still one of the best minds on sanatana dharma alive today.

>>17866215
I’ve been following Acharyaji for years, fag. He actually gives good lectures is why I like him personally

Ya guys like ramana maharshi?

>>17865193
I think a lot of it is due to the fact that when European colonists started trying to understand India they looked for analogues of the development of European philosophies and religions, like the Greeks and Christianity. So they did things like see Buddhism as the Protestantism of India, but they also saw Advaita as the most "pure" expression of what Indians were really saying all along, rather than seeing India as a diversity of traditions. They basically wanted to see Protestant deism and mystical pietism, which is what enlightened Europeans valued at the time. So they were already inclined to see anything with plurality or multiplicity, like paganism or henotheism but also any "folk" traditions that seemed "messy," as degenerate forms of some ideal norm.

Indians took on these preconceptions because acceptance by the European invaders was a path to success and a sign of prestige, one that they both manipulated intentionally and unconsciously valued in its own right. So they themselves began looking back at their own history and traditions for the "real" tradition, the one they were always basically driving at. Indians began to look at their own traditions the way Europeans did, as a bunch of degenerated folk practices and bhakti that really orbit around a single star of mystic deism.

Neovedantism came out of this and it always favoured Advaita although it was pretty ecumenical in general, since it was basically Indians trying to apply European nationalism (what is India as a nation?) to Indian religion (what is the true Indian tradition that makes it worthy of being a nation?). So most neovedantists have minor preferences for Advaita but are pretty relaxed about saying that Buddhism and Ramanuja are part of the same basic tapestry.

Western scholars in the mid to late 19th century also picked up on these biases at a time when they were looking for essentially copies of Schleiermacher's ecumenical mysticism in the exotic East. Rudolf Otto's monolithic experience of the Sacred, Deussen's preference for Advaita, etc all have their roots in this. The aftermath of this Advaita bias can be seen in some of more unfortunate and shallow New Age applications, where it's "the same thing as" taoism/zen/buddhism, just with some Hindu spice, for California assholes.

It's a mixed legacy since it caused a lot of critical work to be done, and caused the Indians to gain national pride and take the torch over from Europeans when it comes to analysing and deciding on their own history and destiny (which they are still in the process of doing). I think we might be on the cusp of really exciting developments in India. I wish they had another impetus like the British colonial administration giving them objective structure to work towards, another framework to excel within and then take over. They badly need a "revolution from above" to galvanise them and make people strive toward the top again. Not sure Hindutva is that, maybe the early seeds of it.

>>17865503
In the first 10 minutes he says the earliest vedanta commentaires are Shankara. He is a complere imbecile

>>17866567
>complere
You can’t even spell lol

>>17866604
nice argument, twink

>>17866609
>immediately resorts to gay fantasies about me
Yikes

>>17866567
There are earlier ones but they dont survive to the present day I believe. That may be what he meant. Shankara mentions the commentaries of people like Bhrartrprapanca but none of the commentaries of earlier people survive as texts today from what I remember. Bhaskara is post-Shankara

>>17866834
Wait what about Badarayana?.

>>17867083
he didnt write commentaries

>>17866231
Rule No.01 of fight club!

>>17866322

>>17866239
I agree, his commentaries and lectures on sanatana dharma itself are excellent, particularly for westerners who want entry to into a more orthodox form. However, his opinions on almost everything else are poor, and when he discusses those other issues he has a certain arrogance about himself that puts me off. I wish he would stick to what he is best at.

>>17866834
At a stretch you could say Gaudapada's Karika is a commentary.

bros.... I got memed by Guenon and am reading into tasawuf or "mystical" islam and besides the basic ritual, dhikr and notably interesting figures like ibn arabi (who is scorned by 99% of muslims as a heretic), as well as fascinating prophets like al-khidr, I keep coming back to looking at Vedic practises, which feels bad cuz the Quran has been telling me about 10 million times now how 'idolatry' is evil

in islam there is a still living civilization and spirit inherent within the 'ummah', that is practical and a true 'religion' as my western mind intuitively grasps, but regardless Vedic stuff still draws me. is it possible as a westerner to not-convert into the Tradition via some kind of initiation? to meld into Vedic society without being a LARPer? also what's the rundown on taking a particular deity as a patron (because you identify your born nature with it) in order to excel in the patron's aspect? how truly alien is Vedic doctrine as Guenon makes it out to be?

>>17868208
True, it’s in verse though, there are no surviving Vedantic commentaries written in prose from before Shankara as far as I know. Not that Im taking a side viz. Sri Dharma Pravartaka Acharya though, just making an observation.

>>17868293
>is it possible as a westerner to not-convert into the Tradition via some kind of initiation? to meld into Vedic society without being a LARPer?
As a westerner you cannot receive the Upanayana initiation that the 3 upper castes receive, but you can receive the Samasrayana initiation into any of the schools of Vaishnavism, and most Shaivite and Shaktist schools also permit westerners to be initiated into them, since their initiations are derived from the Agamas which dont attach conditions like caste etc to the initiations prescribed by them.

>>17866355
Exactly. This is what postcolonialists call self-orientalization.

>>17865125
>>17865134
>>17865308
>>17865193
>>17866057
>>17866322
>>17868293

>>17865503
this man knows

>>17865503
this. shankara was adopted by blavatsky and theosophical society and then guenon

>Then there was my remark about H.P. Blavatsky and the Traditionalists. I do not see why the idea that Guénon's break with the Theosophits as "a turf war among rival gurus" should be so obviously wrong. L'Erreur Spirite is mostly an attack on the shortcomings of other Theosophists and not an attack on Theosophism itself, if I can read French. That is why it is so tedious — four hundred pages of hacking away at other people's inadequacies, and no attempt to engage with the fundamental issues of Theosophism. It all amounts to proof of a lot of very soured personal relationships and disillusionments, I would say..

>Guénon was in some respects a typical intellectual of his time, influenced by the way in which metaphysical thought in Europe had already moved in the direction of monistic Pantheism under the influence of 19th Century German idealism. Blavatsky just had to connect that with the Shankaran Vedantic tradition. That mean that European intellectuals would assume from then on the most monistic interpretations of Indian thought must be the most authoritative.

vadiraja tirtha refuted shankara. from what i see dvaita and vishshtadvaita is way more interesting

>>17868808
> vadiraja tirtha refuted shankara
No, he didn’t

>>17868808
>from what i see dvaita and vishshtadvaita is way more interesting
mimamsa is better than them all

Advaitins are the ultimate NPCs, and they can’t even read the Upanishads or other scriptures correctly.

>>17869252

>>17869070
What do you say to the argument that the Purva-Mimansa position that all the parts of the Vedas which don’t enjoin action are useless (Mimansa Sutra 1.2.1.), is itself an incoherent position because then the Vedic passages which prohibit certain actions like the killing of Brahmins acquire the status of being useless since they don’t enjoin any action?

>>17869478
>phoneposting
Advaitin NPC detected

>>17869601
Advaitins are the opposite of NPCs, since they insist on the primacy of consciousness.

any good vedanta reading lists?

>>17869652
Advaitins get filtered by buddhism lol, like all true peak NPC

>>17865503
Guy is just a hindboo larper who attracts people with no idea about hinduism by dressing like what they imagine an indian dresses like and pretends to be some defender of real and authentic vedanta. In fact he just regurgitates false information and panders to his particular sect, as can easily be observed in this very video.

>>17870683
Advaita refuted Buddhism, that’s why Buddhists have never been able to answer Shankara’s arguments

Only clueless people and NPCs who lack an inner conscious experience fall for the fallacious Buddhist doctrine of no-self

>>17869865
For Advaita:

Start with a book about Advaita Vedanta to familiarize yourself with the terminology used like Guenon’s ‘Man and His Becoming According to the Vedanta’ or Deutsch’s ‘Advaita Vedanta a Philosophical Reconstruction’.

1) Atma Bodha and the Ashtavakra Gita
2) 8 Upanishad commentaries of Shankara translated by Gambhirananda in a 2-part compilation
3) Brihadaranyaka Upanishad commentary of Shankara
4) Chandogya Upanishad commentary of Shankara
5) Shankara’s Gita commentary
6) Shankara Brahma Sutra Bhasya
7) Shankara’s various remaining secondary works like his short non-commentary philosophical treatises (prakarana granthas) and his commentaries of lesser importance (Sri Vishnusahasranama Stotram, Sri Lalita Trisata Bhasya, Yogasutrabhasyavivarana etc)

For Vishishtadvaita:
For an intro book, see ‘The Philosophy of Vishishtadvaita’ by S. M. Srinivasa Chari

1) Yatīndramatadīpikā - Srinivasa Dasa
2) Ramanuja’s Gita commentary
3) Ramanuja’s Vedartha Sangraha
4) Ramanuja’s Brahma Sutra commentary
5) Ranga Ramanuja Muni’s Upanishad commentaries

>>17871694
*Sri Lalita Trisati Bhasya