/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.18562066]

Is Kashmir Shaivism superior to Advaita Vedanta?

[Anonymous No.18562233]

>>18562066
Yes.

[Anonymous No.18562268]

Why not both?

[Anonymous No.18562405]

>>18562066

Chandradhar Sharma has a chapter in his book “The Advaita Tradition in Indian Philosophy” where he details numerous logical contradictions in Kashmir Shaivism from the Advaita point of view. I have never found or encountered any serious rebuttal of Sharma’s arguments in that chapter from someone representing the perspective of Kashmir Shaivism. Sharma’s arguments seem sound to me. Until I encounter this as yet undiscovered potential rebuttal and evaluate it myself, I can’t help but agreeing with Sharma that Advaita has more logically consistent metaphysics.

With that said, I see Kashmir Shaivism and other non-Advaita forms of Hindu non-dualism as an alternative means to approaching the same goal or truth as Advaita, perhaps by a more indirect way. And according to Advaita metaphysics itself people who devote themselves to mediating on the qualified Brahman gain access at death to the Brahmaloka whereby they then have billions of years to attain liberation while there, free during their stay there from the problems of earthly life; so from the Advaita viewpoint they can be reconciled as direct and indirect paths to the same goal. Both are worth studying and both have an interesting perspective that is worth considering. If you find both schools interesting it’s worth looking into Sri Vidya and Bhaskararaya’s writings as well.

[Anonymous No.18562543]

>>18562066
Yes, absolutely.

>>18562405
Chandradhar Sharma is a good scholar on Advaita, but he is too biased, thus I suggest anyone to refrain from getting knowledge, even basic knowledge, cocnerning Kashmir Shaivism from him. He fails to address in good faith many doctrines of Shaivism like the recollection, he presents and attacks a caricature that does not exist in the school. He fails to understand even the basic dialectical relation in Shaivism. Dialectics, that which the advaitins fear so much and fail to explain their crypto-dualism.

[Anonymous No.18562548]

Hare Krsna

[Anonymous No.18562582]

>>18562543
>even basic knowledge, cocnerning Kashmir Shaivism from him. He fails to address in good faith many doctrines of Shaivism like the recollection, he presents and attacks a caricature that does not exist in the school.
Can you give specific examples? Sharma could read Sanskrit and in his book he cites passages from Abhinavagupta’s works in Sanskrit. Unless you can give specific examples of how what he says is wrong it’s just your word against his and I’m inclined to believe published authors/scholars over anonymous posters who don’t even give specific examples to support their claims.

> Dialectics, that which the advaitins fear so much and fail to explain their crypto-dualism.
Huh? Advaitin philosophers engaged in their own dialectics so I’m not sure why you think they are supposed to fear dialectics

[Anonymous No.18562683]

>>18562066
Anything except indian feces is better than advaita (because indian feces is one with advaita)

[Anonymous No.18562691]

>>18562582
get a life, guenonfag

you're not even initiated

[guenonfag No.18562711]

>[a refutation of advaita]
Huh? How so?
>[further refutation of advaita and monkeyman]
How can this be so since advaita is irrefutable?

[Anonymous No.18562793]

>>18562582
I just gave two examples where he mischaracterizes the shaivist positions in order to ''refute'' them.
>Advaitin philosophers engaged in their own dialectics
And it seems they could not resolve them for the brahman-maya duality is unsurpassable in advaita.

[Anonymous No.18562797]

>>18562691
I have a wonderful and exciting life, in between creating great works of art, fighting crime, and wooing beautiful and intelligent women, among other activities, I also happen to post about metaphysics on 4chan in my spare time, now answer the question:

How specifically is anything that Sharma says in his criticism of Kashmir Shaivism wrong? Be specific and quote the sentence he writes you wish to refute and prove that it’s wrong, ideally with sources, if you can’t even muster an attempt at showing specifically how he’s wrong I’ll have to write you off as a posing pseud who doesn’t even know what he’s talking about. I don’t want to do this, but if you can’t even be specific in backing up your claims you leave me with no choice.

[Anonymous No.18562819]

>>18562793
>where he mischaracterizes the shaivist positions in order to ''refute'' them.
How? Unless you explain why what he wrote is wrong you’re not actually giving an example, in order to do so you have to point out what exactly he said was wrong, and what the position of Kashmir Shaivism *actually* is, in contrast to Sharma’s portrayal of it. Nobody has any way of knowing or verifying what you are saying is true because you are being vague and have not pointed out exactly what Sharma gets wrong, like *what* he says about recollection and *why* that’s wrong

> brahman-maya duality is unsurpassable in advaita.
How so? Maya doesn’t exist in absolute reality, not is it eternal because it can be ended for the soul when they are liberated and merge back into Brahman. Dualism means two equally real opposing principles, it can’t be dualism if one vanishes and only one is left remaining.

[Anonymous No.18562835]

>>18562066
That depends. Does Buddhism live rent free in KS like it does in AV? If Shaivists can get through a treatise without seething about Buddhism like Advaitans then they are based. If not they are cringe.

[Anonymous No.18562884]

>>18562819
He posits recollection in a caricatural way as a temporal-processualism when this is far from truth, like the procession and the return of the manifesting prakashavimarshamaya.

>Maya doesn't exist in absolute reality
Maya is Brahman's power, without it Brahman is powerless and it is from this power that all manifestation is actualized, Brahman, however, indifferent. Also the Ignorance Consciousness is eternal, making non-absolute reality as eternal as absolute reality.

[Anonymous No.18562927]

>>18562405
>he details numerous logical contradictions in Kashmir Shaivism from the Advaita point of view.
What are some of the contradictions he points out?

[Anonymous No.18562935]

>>18562405
I would be careful about reading Advaita Vedanta interpretations such as Shankara's as a commentary to the Upanishads, they are extremely reliant on Buddhist philosophy (Shankara is called a "cryptobuddhist" by most Hindus, and most scholars agree). If you want to read the Upanishads, work through them with editions and commentaries that aren't sectarian, or at least read an interpretation that is closer to the original meaning of the Upanishads, rather than Shankara's 9th century AD quasi-buddhism.

[Anonymous No.18562961]

>guenonfag the uninitiated, reader of one book on advaita in his entire life, getting annihilated by yet another kashmir shaivite chad

[Anonymous No.18562977]

>>18562927
>What are some of the contradictions he points out?
You can see here for yourself, this is the whole chapter here in pic related. This book is available on archive.org, and also as a pdf on lib-gen

[Anonymous No.18562993]

>>18562835
>Does Buddhism live rent free in KS like it does in AV?
Like other Hindu schools, Kashmir Shaivist thinkers attacked Buddhist doctrines in their writings. Here is an interesting article which examines some of the critiques Kashmir Shaivite thinkers made of Buddhist doctrines concerning the Self

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319012666_Studies_on_Bhartrhari_and_the_Pratyabhijna_The_Case_of_svasamvedana

[Anonymous No.18563008]

Show body, Guenonfag.

[Anonymous No.18563144]

>>18562884
>He posits recollection in a caricatural way as a temporal-processualism when this is far from truth
What do you mean? Can you elaborate? Are you claiming that Prayabhijna (self-recognition) is non-temporal as in not occurring within time and Sharma is misconstruing it as something that occurs within time? How can this be so when the purpose of Prayabhijna in Kashmir Shaivism is supposed to be the removal of ignorance? That ignorance is being removed at all seems to be presupposing that Pratyabhijna is an act or process which can be placed in time relative on the one hand to the ignorance that it removes, and on the other hand to the state of freedom which is supposed to follow after it is removed. It doesn't seem very logical to call it non-temporal while also saying that it makes a difference viz. one's spiritual status at a certain point in time.

Can you provide any citation from any page of Abhinavagupta's writings to support your claim that Prayabhijna is non-temporal? And what would this even look like in practice?

>Maya is Brahman's power, without it Brahman is powerless
What do you mean by "without it"? Do you mean that when Brahman exists alone in absolute reality while being completely unaffected by maya that maya has somehow become something that is not contingent upon Brahman anymore? That would be incorrect, even when Brahman is alone in absolute reality as the only existent thing, even here maya is contingent upon Brahman and Brahman cannot reasonably be misconstrued as "powerless".

The fact of Brahman being omnipotent is separate from maya itself and the ending of the perception of maya by individual jivas. Brahman being omnipotent in the sense of His inherent nature to emanate or irradiate maya not being limited, bound or encumbered by anything is what allows Brahman to remain as the only existent thing in absolute reality, while sustaining maya at the lower level of conditional reality for a duration for the individual jivas. Even when the individual jiva is enlightened, ends transmigration, is absorbed into Brahman and doesn't perceive maya anymore, even then the maya that is being perceived by other jivas is still contingent upon Brahman, thus not making Brahman powerless.

>and it is from this power that all manifestation is actualized, Brahman, however, indifferent.
Yes, if Brahman wasn't indifferent but rather was concerned about things it would mean that Brahman was not immutable and was subject to dualities, the pairs of opposites like likes and dislikes. This is incompatible with the near universally-held view that God is immutable. I don't find it logically sound to say that God or any other truly eternal thing is subject to change.

>Also the Ignorance Consciousness is eternal, making non-absolute reality as eternal as absolute reality.
What is the "Ignorance Consciousness"? There is no such term taught in Advaita. Did you just make that up? In Advaita only Brahman is eternal and Brahman isn't ignorance.

[Anonymous No.18563159]

>>18563008

[Anonymous No.18563331]

bump

[Anonymous No.18563339]

[Anonymous No.18563977]

>>18563159
>posts body of another man
Yeah, thought so

[Anonymous No.18564098]

bumping

[Anonymous No.18564107]

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.18564132]

A bit off topic but also on topic, here is a break down of the Tattva ontology of Kashmir shivaism I wrote, using the tantraloka and tantrasara of Ahbinavagupta as the primary source for the system. For those who are perhaps interested this should help give you an idea of how the ontology works a little bit.

https://pastebin.com/AjzfzFTk

[Anonymous No.18564241]

>>18564132
What do you think about Rimbaud and his poetry? Also, how many times do you masturbate in a year?

[Anonymous No.18564253]

>>18564132
Ahbinavagupta committed suicide as his last meditation.
What a loser

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.18564275]

>>18564241
I love the decadents but despise Rimbaud because the bulk of his popularity is due to a cult of youth surrounding him and his later biography, Verlaine, Aloysius bertrand, Baudelaire, mallarme, all of these are far superior poets, and if you want the actual young poet with a titanic intellect, it’s John Keats, he’s the actual shame.

As for masturbation, I’m married so I don’t need to.

[Anonymous No.18564296]

>>18564275
>mallarme
Do you speak French? I feel like a poet as intricate and subtle as him is useless in translation.

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.18564314]

>>18564296
Nope, though I do study commentaries, annotations, studies and so forth which go into those intricacies whenever possible and I do recite any poem I read in English, to the best of my ability, within the French original also. I try to do that for every non-English poem I enjoy.

[࿇ C Œ M G E N V S ࿇ !KNDY3cHnRY No.18564335]

>— iS DeMoNiSTiC CuLT oNe SuPeRioR To DeMoNiSTiC CuLT TWo?


...

[Anonymous No.18564351]

>>18564335
Meds.

[Anonymous No.18564355]

>>18564351
Germanics.

[Anonymous No.18564362]

are there any advaita or hindu youtubers who would be able to argue their position against trained philosophers or theolgians, like a Jay Dyer type?
Without devolving into incoherent gibberish and contradictions?

I doubt it. If you think someone can, then name them.

[Anonymous No.18564367]

>>18564362
>youtube philosophers

[Anonymous No.18564381]

>>18564367
>philosophers that avoid live debate
Mental masturbation without putting it to the test. Useless.

[Anonymous No.18564388]

>>18564381
I think I have a “philosopher” for you.

[Anonymous No.18564394]

>>18564388
>atheist ''philosopher''
oxymoron and retroactively refuted by Guenon et al.

[Anonymous No.18564408]

>>18564394
Debate him bro.

[Anonymous No.18564434]

>>18562977
Thank you!

[Anonymous No.18564476]

>>18564362
Swami Sarvapriyananda

[Anonymous No.18564738]

>>18564381
>Mental masturbation
That is exactly what debate is.

[Anonymous No.18564815]

why is shaivism considered a south indian abbo addition by indian aryan supermacy fucks when it clearly prospered in the Himalayas

[Anonymous No.18564858]

This thread was moved to >>>/his/11460935