Shankara: A Hindu Revivalist or a Crypto-Buddhist?

[Anonymous No.14649817]

In the Padma Purana, there is a famous verse wherein Shiva tells Parvati that he will appear in the age of Kali as a brahmana to preach asat-sastra
>O goddess, in the age of Kali, I will appear in the form of a brahmana to preach the false doctrine of Mayavada which is simply covered Buddhism. (Padma Purana 6.236.7)

Indisputably, the brahmana mentioned in the verse is none other than the great Indian philosopher of monistic Vedanta, Adi Sankara. A few verses later Shiva continues
>This powerful doctrine of Mayavada resembles the Vedas, but is by nature non-Vedic. O goddess, I propagate this philosophy in order to destroy the world. (Padma Purana 6.236.11)

The term ‘Mayavada’ refers to the Advaitic theory that the appearance of this world and the duality within it is due to maya – the illusory power of Brahman. This world is unreal and is a vivarta, or a modification through maya. Brahman is the only reality. There are various reasons why this theory is untenable, but that is not the topic of this article.

‘Mayavada’ is an expression that is rarely used by Advaitins in referring to themselves or their doctrine as it carries with it a derogatory implication. Adi Sankara himself referred to his philosophy as abheda-darsana (the theory of non-difference) or as dvaitavada-pratisedha (the denial of dualism). However, amongst scholars his philosophy is generally known as kevaladvaita-vada (the theory of absolute non-dualism) or simply Advaita.

From the above verses from Padma Purana it is clear that even before it’s actual inception, Advaita philosophy was considered to be ‘covered Buddhism’. Sankara’s opponents such as Madhva, Ramanuja, Partha-sarathi Misra and Bhaskara associated his teachings with Buddhism mainly due to his theory of nirguna Brahman and his concept of maya. Such accusations have always incensed the Mayavadis and they have strongly protested against such parallels and made great efforts to distance themselves from Buddhism, condemning it as absolute nihilism.

[Anonymous No.14649818]

Bhaskara (9th Century CE), the propounder of bhedabheda-siddhanta was one of the earliest Indian philosophers to attack Mayavada. In his commentary on Vedanta-sutra, Bhaskara does not mention Sankara by name, nor does he mention the name of his philosophy. However by reviewing his arguments against the monistic doctrine of maya and the Advaitic concept of anirvacaniya, it is obvious who and what he is alluding to.

Bhaskara is positively vitriolic when writing about the Advaitin’s concept of maya, referring to it’s adherents as bauddha-matavalambin (those that cling to Buddhist ideology) and goes on to say that their philosophy reeks of Buddhism (bauddha-gandhin). Bhaskara concludes that, “No one but a drunkard could hold such theories” and that Mayavada is subversive of all sastrika knowledge:
>Expanding on the contradictory and baseless philosophy of maya propagated by the Mahayanika Buddhists, the Mayavadis have misled the whole world. (Bhaskara’s Brahma-sutra-bhasya 1.4.25)

In his Siddha-traya, the Vaisnava philosopher Yamunacarya (917–1042 CE) stated that Buddhism and Mayavada was essentially the same thing. The only difference he could see was that while one was openly Buddhist (prakata-saugata), the other was simply covered (pracchana-saugata).

Following on from Yamunacarya, his disciple Sri Ramanuja (1017-1137 CE) also concurred that Mayavada was another form of Buddhism. In his Sri Bhashya commentary on the Vedanta-sutras, Ramanuja says that to claim that non-differentiated consciousness is real and all else is false is the same as the Buddhist concept of universal void. Furthermore, Ramanuja states that the concepts of such crypto-Buddhists make a mockery of the teachings of the Vedas (veda-vadacchadma pracchana-bauddha).

Another acarya in the line of Ramanuja, Vedanta Desika (1269–1370) wrote his famous Sata-dusini, a text expounding one hundred flaws found in Mayavada. In that work he refers to Sankara as a rahu-mimamsaka (one who obscures the true meaning of Vedanta), a bhrama-bhiksu (a confused beggar), a cadmavesa-dhari – one who is disguised in false garb, and goes on to assert that, “By memorizing the arguments of the Sata-dusini like a parrot, one would be victorious over the crypto-Buddhists.”

In another work, Paramata-bhangam, Vedanta Desika refers to Sankara as, “One who studied the Vedas in the shop of a Madhyamika Buddhist” (referring to Sankara’s param-guru Gaudapada of whom we will speak of later in this article).

[Anonymous No.14649821]

Later philosophers also declared Mayavada to be crypto-Buddhism. The Sankhya philosopher Vijnana-bhiksu (1550–1600 CE) tried to reconcile Vedanta with Sankhya philosophy and synthesize all theistic schools of Indian thought into a philosophy that he called Avibhagadvaita (indistinguishable non-dualism). He was an impartial writer who analyzed both the merits and problems of the various doctrines that he encountered. Concerning Sankara’s philosophy, Vijnana-bhiksu states in his Sankhya Pravacana Bhasya
>There is not a single Brahma-sutra in which bondage is declared to be a mere deception. As to the novel theory of maya propounded by vedanta-bruva (those who claim to be Vedantists), it is only another type of Buddhist of the Vijnanavada school (vijnana-vadyekadesin). This theory has nothing to do with Vedanta and it should be understood that this doctrine of these new Buddhists, who assert the theory of maya and reduce our bondage to mere illusion is in this way refuted. (Sankhya Pravacana Bhasya 1.22)

Later on in his work, Vijnana-bhiksu also quotes the famous verse from Padma Purana (mayavadam asat-chastram). Vijnana-bhiksu considered Buddhism to be nastikavada, or atheism, as it was opposed to Vedic thought. Thus, in effect, he was declaring Mayavadis to be out and out atheists.

Amongst all acaryas and philosophers, Sri Madhvacarya was certainly the most hostile towards Sankara. Throughout his campaign to establish his philosophy of Dvaitavada, Madhva continuously attacked Mayavada, which he considered to be the worst kind of heresy. In his Anu-vyakhyana, Brhad-bhasya and Tattvodyota, Madhva also makes the claim that the Advaitins are crypto-Buddhists – na ca sunyavadinah sakasad vailaksanyam mayavadinah (there is no doctrinal difference between Buddhism and Mayavada). He even quotes Buddhist texts and compares them to Advaitin works to prove his point.

At this point it would only be fair to see what Sankara himself has to say about Buddhism.

[Anonymous No.14649824]

Sankara has long been glorified as being the principle architect behind Buddhism’s eventual decline in India. We do not know whether or not Sankara personally debated with Buddhist scholars since all the traditional hagiographies about him were written much later between the 14th and 17th Centuries and are an inextricable combination of legend and history.

What is certain is that by the time Sankara came to prominence, Buddhism was already on the wane in India. Buddhist scholars coming from China lamented the collapse of the Buddhist sanga due to Muslim assaults and the invasion of the White Hunas (Sveta Hunas or Turuskas) in Northern India during the 6th Century CE. During this period there was a resurgence of Vedic thought due to the patronage of such royal dynasties as the Guptas. Thus Sankara cannot be fully credited with the fall of Indian Buddhism.

During the time of Sankara there were three main schools of Buddhism – Vijnanavada (subjective idealism), Bahyarthavada (representationalism) and Madhyamika or Sunyavada (voidism). In his commentaries on the Upanishads, Sankara’s arguments against Buddhism are rather tame. However, when it comes to his refutations in his Brahma-sutra-bhasya, Sankara is quite derogatory and pens a vitriolic character assassination of Buddha
>Thus by inventing three contradictory systems – the reality of the world, the reality of knowledge and total voidism – it is clear that Buddha was either a man who simply made delirious statements, or else he had a hatred for mankind that induced him to create such a stupid philosophy so that they would become confused. (Sarirka-bhasya 2.2.32)

Sankara indeed made efforts to refute some of the Buddhist concepts found in Vijnanavada and Bahyarthavada, but made no strong attempts to defeat Sunyavada. Sankara writes in his Saririka-bhasya
>The third type of Buddhist doctrine that states that everything is void is contradicted by all means of right knowledge and thus requires no special refutation. This apparent world, whose existence is guaranteed by all means of knowledge, cannot be denied unless someone should discover some new truth (based on which he could impugn its existence) – for a general principle is proved by the absence of contrary instances. (Sarirka-bhasya 2.2.31)

Sankara dismisses Sunyavada as nihilism as it does not accept a higher reality after rejecting the phenomenal world. However, this accusation of Sankara’s is false since Sunyavada endorses the higher reality of the present moment directly experienced here and now. This is the only real criticism that Sankara makes of Sunyavada. Ultimately Sankara simply dismisses Sunyavada as being unworthy of criticism.

It is obvious from his commentary that Sankara attempted to distance himself from Buddhism. Yet his casual dismissal of Sunyavada and his gross misinterpretation of its doctrine are suspicious and need to be analyzed further.

[Anonymous No.14649827]

It would be unreasonable to simply accuse Sankara of being a crypto-Buddhist simply on the basis of what his opponents have said without further examining the reasons for such accusations.

Throughout history, Mayavadis themselves recognized certain similarities between Buddhism and Advaitavada and have even complimented Buddhist ideology. The Advaitin scholar, Vimuktatman (9th Century CE) agrees with Sankara that Sunyavada Buddhism is nihilism, but admits in his famous work Ista-siddhi that if the Buddhists mean maya when they use the term asat, then their position is similar to that of the Vedantin.

Similarly, Sadananda Yogindra states that if the Buddhists define sunya as, ‘That which is beyond the intellect,’ then the Buddhist is actually a Vedantist.

Although the Advaitin Sriharsa accepts some differences between Advaita and Buddhism, he considers both schools of thought to be similar. Later, Sriharsa’s commentator Citsukha even comes to the rescue of the Sunyavada Buddhists by fending off the Vedic Mimamsakas when they attack the Buddhist concept of ignorance (samvrtti).

The Advaitin scholar Vacaspati Misra (900-980 CE) shows appreciation for the Buddhists when he states in his Bhamati commentary that the Buddhists of the Sunyavada school were advanced in thought (prakrstamati).

If ‘imitation is the highest form of flattery.’ then it certainly must have been true when Sankara plagiarized the famous Buddhist scholar Dharmakirti by directly lifting verses from Dharmakirti’s Pramana-viniscaya and using them in his Upadesa-sahasri. One example is the following
>The intellect itself, though indivisible, is looked upon by deluded people as consisting of the divisions of the knower, knowing and the known. (Upadesa-sahasri.18.142)

Sankara’s doctrine of maya has been one of the principle reasons that he has been accused of being a closet Buddhist. Yet it was actually Sankara’s parama-guru, Gaudapada who posited the idea of maya or ajativada in his famous Mandukya-karika.

Ajativada refers to the theory of non-creation. In his karika Gaudapada claims that the world of appearances is actually maya and does not factually exist. So this theory of maya/ajativada does not originate with Sankara.

However, it does not originate with Gaudapada either…

Prior to Gaudapada, it was Nagarjuna that first postulated the concept of ajativada in his Madhyamika-karikas. In his Mandukya-karika, Gaudapada writes
>We approve of the ajati declared them (the Buddhists). We do no quarrel with them. (Mandukya-karika 4.5)

It is even affirmed by Sankara himself that Gaudapada accepted the arguments of the Buddhists regarding ajativada
>The acarya (Gaudapada) has accepted the words of the Vijnanavada Buddhist (Nagarjuna) to prove the unreality of external things. (Sankara’s commentary on Gaudapada’s Karika 4.27)

[Anonymous No.14649830]

We will now examine other examples where Buddhism has infiltrated Mayavada philosophy

>Two Truths
Sankara postulates that there are two ways of looking at the world. There is a conventional perspective (vyavaharika-satya) where the world appears to be pluralistic, and there is the higher perspective (paramarthika satya) where one realizes that all duality is simply illusory and everything is Brahman.

However, this concept of ‘two truths’ did not originate with Sankara but with the Buddhist scholar Nagarjuna. Nagarjuna refers to these two truths as samvrtti-satta and paramartha-satta. Nagarjuna’s theory was enthusiastically taken up by Sankara in order to explain higher and lower fields of knowledge.

>The Non-Existence of the Universe
Buddhism states that the universe is unreal (asat). Since its origin is sunya and it ends in sunya, logically, its interim must also be sunya. Thus they conclude that ultimately the element of time also does not exist. This means that the sum-total of everything in the universe is sunya.

Sankara also posits the same idea when he states jagat-mithya – the universe is false. Sankara rejects all three phases of time (past, present and future) when he writes in his Dasa-sloki
>I do not experience the waking state, the dream state nor the state of deep sleep. (Dasa-sloki 6)

If one dissolves all states of being that we experience (waking, dreaming and deep sleep), then naturally this eliminates time itself and the only ‘property’ remaining is void, or sunya.

Sankara describes the ultimate cause of the universe as avidya (ignorance). It has no past, present and future. However, conveniently, Sankara explains that this avidya cannot be fully explained philosophically because of its immense propensity – thus he calls it anirvacaniya (inexplicable). Both the asat of the Buddhist and the anirvacaniya of the Mayavadi accept the momentary ‘reality’ of the universe (vyavaharika-satya), it’s ultimate falsity (paramarthika-satya) and its incomprehensible nature – thus asat and anirvacaniya are one and the same thing.

Whereas Buddhists refer to the phenomenal universe as an impression (samskara), Sankara says that it is like a dream (svapna). However, this is just a matter of semantics –both dreams and impressions are in essence the same thing since they only occur on the mental platform.

Both the Mayavadi and the Buddhist agree that ignorance is the cause of suffering. The Mayavadi calls this avidya and the Buddhist refers to this as samvrtti. The Mayavadis go to great lengths to make differentiations between the two. However, the Buddhist scholar Candrakirti give the following etymological meaning of samvrtti:
>Samvrtti is not knowing, caused by the veil of avidya, common to all. (Prasannapada 24.8.492.10)

Thus we conclude that the two terms are actually non-different

[Anonymous No.14649835]

>Sadhana
The Mayavadi claims that the method of achieving moksa is realization of the non-difference between the atma and Brahman. The Buddhist says that realization that everything is ultimately sunya is the sadhana to attain liberation. Sankara defines moksa thus
>The realization of one's inseparable oneness with Brahman is the means of liberation from temporal existence, by which the wise person achieves the non-dual, blissful nature of Brahman. (Viveka-cudamani 223)

This theory is identical with the Buddhist concept of prajna. In Buddhism, when the causes of bondage are eliminated one attains realization of sunya which leads to liberation. This realization is known as prajna.

Advaita defines moksa as the removal of avidya. Buddhists say that by the removal of samvrtti, one attains nirvana. Both conceptions of liberation are identical.

Once again, the Mayavadis go to great lengths to prove that their concept of Brahman and the Buddhist concept of sunya are totally different. The Mayavadis argue that by attaining Brahman one achieves ananda, but there is no ananda in sunya. However, the great Dvaita scholar Raghuttama Tirtha has shown that there is no distinction between the two
>You Mayavadis desire to become Brahman or to become bliss. You do not say, ‘We want to experience bliss.’ You say, ‘We want to become bliss’. When one becomes bliss, according to you, one has no consciousness of bliss. One does not enjoy bliss because you don’t believe that there is any consciousness of any enjoyment in that condition because you say the Self cannot become the object of Self-consciousness. According to you, Brahman is merely bliss and light. This cannot be the highest end. It is a state of inertness. It is thus like saying, ‘I do not want to taste sugar, or its sweetness – but I wish to become sugar.’ What is the good of one’s becoming sugar, if one has no consciousness of its sweetness? The lack of consciousness cannot be the highest end of man; in fact, there is no difference in this unconscious brahma-bhava of the Mayavadi, and the sunya-bhava of the Buddhists. (Bhava-bodha sub-commentary of the Brhad-bhasya)

According to Advaita, Brahman is nirguna (without any qualities). But logically speaking, something that is without any attributes whatsoever is as good as nothing (sunya). If something has eternal existence (as the Mayavadis claim Brahman has) then it must have attributes, otherwise it is nothing. Since the Mayavadis Brahman and the Buddhists sunya have no attributes, they must be identical.

[Anonymous No.14649837]

Conclusion

The concepts of maya, avidya, vyayaharika-satya and paramarthika-satya, advaya, prajna, the unreality of the universe and time and the attributeless Brahman are all Buddhist contributions, without which there would be no Advaita philosophy. It thus becomes obvious why Sankara was disinclined to launch an all out attack upon Sunyavada Buddhism when he and his predecessor Gaudapada had appropriated so much from that doctrine.

In conclusion, by carefully analyzing the above points it would seem that Sankara’s detractors were correct in assessing that his philosophy was crypto-Buddhism. It can clearly be observed that Sankara and Gaudapada attempted to amalgamate Buddhist epistemology and psychology with the metaphysics of the Upanishads and Vedanta. Thus, from an orthodox standpoint, this automatically disqualifies Advaitavada as a traditional school of Vedic thought.

[Anonymous No.14649851]

>>14649817
>>14649821
>>14649824
>>14649827
>>14649830
>>14649835
>>14649837

[Anonymous No.14650137]

>>14649817
All of this is basically cope stemming from later Hindu philosophers who are unwilling to accept that their own scriptures (the Upanishads) clearly talk about maya and illusion etc The principle of Maya is explicitly described in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 2.5.19 and in Svetasvatara Upanishad 4.9

Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 2.5.19: "The Lord on account of Maya is perceived as manifold

Svetasvatara Upanishad 4.9: "Brahman projects the universe through the power of Its maya. Again, in that universe Brahman as the jiva is entangled through maya."

So the Padma Purana, a non-revealed smriti text is contradicting the authority of the sruti (revealed texts), which means that the statements of the Padma Purana should be disregarded.
>From the above verses from Padma Purana it is clear that even before it’s actual inception, Advaita philosophy was considered to be ‘covered Buddhism’.
What seems to be the case was that whoever wrote that was aware that the Upanishads teach maya, and they were worried that people would accept that teaching of the Upanishads.

I'm not going to respond to every accusation where people say "x is buddhist" but where there is factually wrong information I will point it out.

>>14649818
>Ramanuja says that to claim that non-differentiated consciousness is real and all else is false is the same as the Buddhist concept of universal void.
No, that's incorrect, since Advaita says that this consciousness is self-luminous Awareness-Bliss that exists eternally and which has it's own self-nature, whereas in the Buddhist concept of universal void there is no stable and abiding conscious presence that endures forever and everything lacks a self-nature, this makes them two completely different concepts. Ramanuja didn't know what he was talking about at all on this question. Try asking any Buddhist if Shunyata is the same as infinite and eternal God-consciousness

[Anonymous No.14650143]

>>14650137
>>14649821
>There is not a single Brahma-sutra in which bondage is declared to be a mere deception
No, but the Brahma Sutras say that the individual soul is an appearance (of Brahman) only, which implies that it's existence as such as a delimited individual soul (as other than Brahman) is an deception or illusion
Brahma Sutra: 50. And (the individual soul is) an appearance (reflection) only.
Brahma Sutra: 51. On account of the unseen principle being non-limitative.

> As to the novel theory of maya propounded by vedanta-bruva (those who claim to be Vedantists), it is only another type of Buddhist of the Vijnanavada school (vijnana-vadyekadesin). This theory has nothing to do with Vedanta
See the top part of this post where the Sruti verses that teach maya are cited

>>14649827
>but admits in his famous work Ista-siddhi that if the Buddhists mean maya when they use the term asat, then their position is similar to that of the Vedantin.
>Similarly, Sadananda Yogindra states that if the Buddhists define sunya as, ‘That which is beyond the intellect,’ then the Buddhist is actually a Vedantist.
wow, if Madhyamika modifies their teaching to remove the nihilist aspects and brings it closer to the Upanishads then it becomes closer to Advaita, wow! who would have thought!?!?! Nevermind that most Buddhists here would strongly dispute those two statements and still maintain that the doctrines are very different

[Anonymous No.14650148]

>>14650143
>>14649827
>The intellect itself, though indivisible, is looked upon by deluded people as consisting of the divisions of the knower, knowing and the known. (Upadesa-sahasri.18.142
I see no proof that this was lifted, and I'm inclined to doubt it as Dharmakirti didn't teach that the intellect is an indivisible thing but that it was a composite and temporary entity that emerges from a stream of momentary vijnanas or mental experiences which form the illusion of there being a stable conscious presence like a self. So it would make no sense for Dharmakirit to write that. In any case Dharmakirti's doctrine is completely opposed to that of Shankara as the former is a subjective idealist and Shankara an ontological idealist. Shankara in fact completely BTFO's Dharmakirti's subjective idealist in multiple of his commentaries and points out all the inner contradictions and incoherent teachings which render it untenable as a doctrine or theory.

>However, it does not originate with Gaudapada either…
Yes, it's found much earlier even before Buddhism in the Upanishads
>Prior to Gaudapada, it was Nagarjuna that first postulated the concept of ajativada in his Madhyamika-karikas.
The Upanishads already declare in the Brihadaranyaka and Svetasvatara verses cited already that the world appears or is projected by Brahman because of His maya. The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad already says that Brahman is unborn in verses 4.4.22., 4.4.24. and 4.4.25. So that notion is already contained in the Upanishads, if the world of multiplicity only appears because of maya and if that basis viz. Brahman is unborn and unchanging, then nothing ever is actually created as a real existent entity, i.e. the unborn doctrine. The Chandogya Upanishad in verse 6.1.4. denies the reality of change and says that the unchanging basis viz. Brahman alone is real: "By knowing a single lump of earth you know all objects made of earth. All changes are mere words, (existing) in name only. But earth is the reality"

[Anonymous No.14650152]

>>14650148
In his Mandukya-karika, Gaudapada writes
>We approve of the ajati declared them (the Buddhists). We do no quarrel with them. (Mandukya-karika 4.5)
Yes, but he does this after pointing out that this is an idea clearly taught in the Upanishads, and Gaudapada cites a bunch of Upanishad verses in his Karika before this to show that it's an Upanishadic doctrine that the Buddhists realized too
It is even affirmed by Sankara himself that Gaudapada accepted the arguments of the Buddhists regarding ajativada
>The acarya (Gaudapada) has accepted the words of the Vijnanavada Buddhist (Nagarjuna) to prove the unreality of external things. (Sankara’s commentary on Gaudapada’s Karika 4.27)
That's doubly incorrect, it's actually in Shankara's commentary on Karika 4.28., that verses is talking about Yogachara Buddhists and has nothing to do with Nagarjuna, and as you can see in pic related Gaudapada only accepts the arguments of the Yogachara Buddhist that say the outside world is (ultimately) unreal but then in the following verses Gaudapada turns those Yogacharas view against Yogachara and demolishes it by showing how they are actually illogical despite them being right that there is no (ultimately) existent outside world of objects, Gaudapada only accepts Yogachara arguments insofar as they support Upanishadic teachings and then BTFO's Yogachara by showing how their other ideas are nonsense.

>>14649830
>However, this concept of ‘two truths’ did not originate with Sankara but with the Buddhist scholar Nagarjuna.
That's false, the Mundaka Upanishad describes a higher or supreme and a lower or non-supreme knowledge in verse 1.1.4., hundreds of years before Nagarjuna

[Anonymous No.14650160]

>>14650152
>>14649830
>Sankara describes the ultimate cause of the universe as avidya (ignorance).
False, he says that the cause is Brahman via His power of maya, avidya is because of maya but is not the ultimate cause itself

>Both the asat of the Buddhist and the anirvacaniya of the Mayavadi accept the momentary ‘reality’ of the universe (vyavaharika-satya), it’s ultimate falsity (paramarthika-satya) and its incomprehensible nature – thus asat and anirvacaniya are one and the same thing.
Wrong, because Shankara maintains that there is the existent transcendental reality of Brahman which in its infinite fullness actually is everywhere pervading everything and existing eternally, so it's not the same because the Buddhist doesn't admit any underlying stable existent reality to the ultimately false universe while Advaita does, and this single change makes it completely different

>Whereas Buddhists refer to the phenomenal universe as an impression (samskara), Sankara says that it is like a dream (svapna).
Wrong, in his commentaries Shankara says that though unreal the world of waking life is still on a different level then dream, and in his writings he criticizes Yogachara Buddhists who equate the two as similarly unreal and Shankara points out how doing so leads to all sorts of absurdities and contradictions

[Anonymous No.14650167]

>>14650160
>>14649835
>This theory is identical with the Buddhist concept of prajna. In Buddhism, when the causes of bondage are eliminated one attains realization of sunya which leads to liberation. This realization is known as prajna.
This theory is found all throughout the primary Upanishads, where it is realization or the knowledge of Brahman which is said to lead to liberation/bliss and not devotion or works, for example:

Svetasvatara Upanishad 4.11: "By truly realizing Him who is non-dual, who presides over the source of everything, and in whom this whole world comes together at the time of creation and dissolves at the time of dissolution - by truly realizing Him who is the Lord, the bestower of blessings, the Adorable God, one attains the supreme peace.

>The Mayavadis argue that by attaining Brahman one achieves ananda, but there is no ananda in sunya. However, the great Dvaita scholar Raghuttama Tirtha has shown that there is no distinction between the two
Tirtha is misunderstanding or misrepresenting what Advaita is talking about. To Advaita, Brahman is self-luminous blissful Awareness, although Brahman does not have knowledge of an 'other', that does not mean that Brahman is not a sentient presence existing eternally. Brahman does not depend upon other objects or dualities for Brahman's Awareness to manifest itself, but rather just as luminosity is the intrinsic characteristic of light, in the same way self-luminous and blissful awareness is the intrinsic nature of Brahman and needs no qualifications or accessories. Tirtha's analogy fails because he makes the example of becoming an inert non-conscious object (sugar), which is not what Advaita is talking about.

>>14649837
In conclusion, the above article appears to be marked by glaring commissions and a stunning lack of knowledge of what Shankara actually taught and wrote. Maybe he formed his understanding of Advaita from how it was misrepresented in the works of Dvaitins and other later Vedantists. The author appears to be not very familiar with the Upanishads or was being deceptive, as if he wanted to give an honest treatment of the subject he would have talked about the Upanishad verses where all these ideas come from, even if he only wanted to dispute that those passages contain that meaning, but to just avoid addressing them altogether begs the question and reveals his motives. I have never seen an article on Hindu philosophy marred by such sloppy scholarship and misrepresentations.

[Anonymous No.14650484]

OP btfo

[Anonymous No.14650511]

>>14650484
oops I meant to say OP btfo guenonfag*

[Anonymous No.14650521]

>>14650137
>Try asking any Buddhist if Shunyata is the same as infinite and eternal God-consciousness
Not him but were you not the same person who suggested that Sunyata was the same as Atma-Brahman a few months ago?

>That's false, the Mundaka Upanishad describes a higher or supreme and a lower or non-supreme knowledge in verse 1.1.4., hundreds of years before Nagarjuna
The two truths doctrine (which is ontological) isn't the same as the higher-lower knowledge which is epistemic.

[Anonymous No.14650754]

>>14650137
>All of this is basically cope stemming from later Hindu philosophers who are unwilling to accept that their own scriptures (the Upanishads) clearly talk about maya and illusion
The Upanishads talk about many things and promote ideas such as unique monism and dualism:
>'May I be many, may I grow forth' (Ch. Up. VI, 2, 3).
>'The being (purusa), of the size of a thumb, resides in the body (prakriti)' (Ka. Up. II, 1, 12).

It's just a record of the exchanges between different people at different points in time interpreting the Vedas differently, its simply false (and quite selfish) to presume an Advaitic (mayavadic) interpretation 'naturally' proceeds from the Upanishads when the majority of Indian philosophers (barring Buddhists) did not arrive at the same conclusion.

[Anonymous No.14650809]

>>14650754
This so much

It’s bizarre how arrogant and dogmatic Advaitins tend to be not just in this board but in real life considering how they like to portray themselves as enlightened intellectuals.

[Anonymous No.14650822]

>>14650809
I've actually met a few Indians irl who profess to abide by Shankarian thought and they are just as cringey/embarrassing as internet Advaitins (pic related). It seems like its such a common trait among these folk.

[Anonymous No.14650858]

Thank you, OP. The need to countersignal advaitans has grown to a critical level as guenonfags have unthinkingly embraced this strain of Vedic thought without properly understanding its place in history and philosophy. We should promote various Vaishnav philosophies such as those of Ramanuja, Madhvacharya and Chaitanya to reignite love of God and counteract impersonalist and voidist philosophies.

[Anonymous No.14650870]

>>14649817
daily reminder to filter all variations of "cryptobuddhist" "guenon" "whitehead" "shankara" "thank you" etc for optimal /lit/ browsing experience

[Anonymous No.14650878]

Guenonfag on suicide watch.

>>14650754
>>14650809
>>14650822
In all seriousness, I've tried to explain to Guenonfag at least three or four times the basic idea that
>other people disagree with Advaitins about the correct interpretation of the Vedas
>you can't simply say "BUT WE REFUTED THEM," because obviously they disagree that you refuted them
>you can't simply say "BUT WE REALLY DID REFUTE THEM THOUGH," for the same reason
>and so on

No matter what you do or say, in my experience an Advaitin will just reply "But Shankara really was right about everything and all other ideas are wrong." They don't understand that their opinion isn't the "default" until proved otherwise. They don't understand that in a dispute, both sides have a right to their position, and theirs isn't the automatic victor unless they happen to be convinced. It's not even an issue of petulance. They really just don't understand it.

[Anonymous No.14650886]

>>14650521
>Not him but were you not the same person who suggested that Sunyata was the same as Atma-Brahman a few months ago?
No, I disagreed with that person and was explaining to them why I thought they were wrong in that thread
>The two truths doctrine (which is ontological) isn't the same as the higher-lower knowledge which is epistemic.
I’m aware of and agree that there is a subtle difference, I was only pointing out that it is incorrect to say that Nagarjuna is the first instance in Indian philosophy of the distinction between higher vs lower knowledge (whether epistemic or ontological) because it occurs in the Mundaka centuries before Nagarjuna, and so there is no basis for concluding that Shankara must have obtained it from Buddhism and not the Mundaka.

[Anonymous No.14651248]

>>14650754
>The Upanishads talk about many things and promote ideas such as unique monism and dualism:
One can interpret them that way, but it doesn't change the fact that the Upanishads describe maya and Brahman causing the world through maya in the verses cited here >>14650137 The Advaita interpretation of the Upanishads does not have to be correct in order for the point to remain true that the Upanishads still describe maya, but rather that remains an indisputable fact in itself, regardless of how the Vedanta schools want to interpret this. Because of this fact it's wrong to insist that those ideas must have been taken from Buddhism as the word maya is used in the context of illusion multiple times in the Primary Upanishads including in pre-Buddhist Upanishads. You are conflating two separate arguments.
>It's just a record of the exchanges between different people at different points in time interpreting the Vedas differently
You may choose to believe this, but this is not the position taken by orthodox Hinduism, which holds that the Upanishads are Sruti, revealed texts that come from God and which teach the same divine teaching and are hence internally consistent. Shankara, Ramanuja, Madhva, Bhaskara, Vijnanabikshu and other Vedantins would have all condemned your view as heretical as it implies that the Sruti are not revealed texts but the product of human deliberation and debate. If one accepts the Upanishads as Sruti then they have to be internally consistent, and this means that one has to reconcile all the verses from the primary Upanishads to make them internally consistent, including reconciling the ones talking about maya and illusion with the verses describing creation. This is why the Brahma Sutras spend so much time explaining how the primary Upanishads are actually internally consistent and don't teach any contradictory information. Advaita reconciles the different verses by maintaining both Maya and the notion of Brahman as the source of everything to be both true, whereas other schools typically abandon the meaning of certain verses by denying maya or they give maya an alternative meaning which is not immediately apparent in the Upanishad verses mentioning maya.

[Anonymous No.14651289]

Friendly reminder that guenonfag will only respond to this thread with the same old pastas.

[Anonymous No.14651415]

>Sunyavada endorses the higher reality of the present moment directly experienced here and now
Can someone please explain this to me?

[Anonymous No.14651424]

>>14651289
Guenonfag here, why would you so blatantly lie about me, especially when anyone can see that your claims are wrong? I went through the article OP posted and explained point by point where much of it was factually incorrect, and a good deal of it was stuff which has not been posted before. Are you so incapable of engaging in well-thought out debate that you are forced to lie in front of an anonymous crowd of viewers in hopes of besmirching my reputation? That's pretty sad. Maybe you should try reading through the works of Shankaracharya (pbuh) who was an impressive logician, you may learn a thing or two about formulating your own arguments to be more logical, then you may feel comfortable enough next time to advance some of them instead of lying.

[Anonymous No.14651455]

>>14651424
sorry i(pbum) posted it before i(pbum) read the thread

[Anonymous No.14651476]

>>14651455
I accept your apology

[Anonymous No.14651529]

>>14651476
Thank you. I see now that you've masterfully refuted all the points made by this subverter of the Tradition. Surely he will now accept defeat, leave the home life and sit by your feet to be initiated into the Brahmacharya. OM.

[Anonymous No.14651678]

>>14651415
It's a very tenuous reading of Madhyamaka/Nagarjuna that the writer of that article makes to defend Nagarjuna from Shankara's criticisms, but many adherants to Madhyamaka would probably not accept it themseves, or at the very least they would say he is phrasing it completely wrong. One of the most common interpretations of Madhyamaka (and the one that is most popular among Buddhists on /lit/) was he denied that there was any transcendental reality or Absolute, and that he said that absolutely everything was lacking inherent self-nature or inherent reality/existence; even to the point of denying that Nirvana had it's own self-nature and saying that Nirvana is empty of everything including its own 'Nirvana-nature/reality". To such a viewpoint Nirvana becomes a figerative description for the state someone reaches who has become freed from ignorance/suffering through them seeing everything as empty and through this realization uprooting desire, ignorance etc. This is in opposition to other schools of Buddhism which maintain to varying degrees that Nirvana is more of a transcendental Absolute or at the very least that it's not empty. Adherents of Madhyamaka would absolutley deny that the "here and now" or the present moment has any sort of "higher reality", as this is in direction contradiction to Nagarjuna's main thesis that everything is empty and lacks inherent existence/reality. This may be a misunderstanding by the author of when Nagarjuna wrote that there is no difference between Nirvana and Samsara, but when Nagarjuna did this he did not mean to say that the illusionary moment of existence in Samsara is actually a higher reality of Nirvana, but rather that Nirvana is not some transcendental 'other' but is just the present moment of sentient experience that we normally regard as samara but instead without any suffering or delusions whatsoever; that is to say that someone who has the insight of everything being empty and who becomes free some suffering via this has the experience of Nirvana because Nirvana is just Samsara but without the wrong-views, delusion, attachment that normally characterize it, but even this would be considered to be empty and without any inherent existent/self-nature and hence it would be wrong to regard the "here and now" as having a higher reality.

There is a minority interpretation of Nagarjuna though which some Buddhist thinkers have advanced which holds that he regarded Nirvana as a transcendental Real and just was pointing to it using extreme apophatic negation and when he said Nirvana was empty he only meant empty of suffering and not empty of reality/existence.

[Anonymous No.14651713]

>>14651678
not him but what do you think of jonang and dolpopa?

[Anonymous No.14651876]

>>14651678
>he denied that there was any transcendental reality or Absolute
Sounds like nihilism to me and wouldn't it basically render all Buddhist practice futile at the point of death?
>just was pointing to it using extreme apophatic negation and when he said Nirvana was empty he only meant empty of suffering and not empty of reality/existence.
From the little I've read about Madhyamika I thought it was rather that the reason why Nirvana is empty of Nirvana is because Nirvana is just a conceptual designation and since all concepts are empty then Nirvana necessarily have to be empty of Nirvana. Technically you can't speak of it in any way since you would have to use descriptions such as Being, Becoming or non-Being etc but all these are empty.

Isn't the more charitable understanding that it necessarily is "something"(albeit beyond both existence and nonexistence) because it seems so unlikely that a world religion is essentially built upon nihilism, most of Mahayana is influenced greatly by Madhyamika after all. Without an eschatology Madhyamika is basically just a nihilist self-help philosophy.

[Anonymous No.14652147]

>>14651713
I like them, they seem to be really interesting. I downloaded Dolpopa's main work 'The Mountain Doctrine' on lib-gen and have only glanced at a few parts but I want to read the whole thing eventually. If the Buddha did teach some sort of apophatic Upanishad-style Absolutism involving a paramatman as Traditionalists like Coomaraswamy and a few mainstream academics believed then Jonang would seem to me to be one of the most successful attempts to both reconstruct this and formulate it into a coherent system. Jonang seems to be sort of a return to the Absolutism of the Yogachara founder Asanga but with additional influence from Buddhist Tantra.

[Anonymous No.14652349]

>>14651876
>wouldn't it basically render all Buddhist practice futile at the point of death?
No, because under this view you would still somehow undergo rebirth into another life to experience suffering and would continue to do so until you had the complete realization of emptiness.

The understanding of Nirvana that you describe is more charitable and makes it seem to be less nihilistic, but I have seen Buddhists on /lit/ who have read Nagarjuna argue against that portrayal before and insist that Nirvana is empty of all inherent existence. I have not read the whole of Nagarjuna's MMK so I can't say for sure myself but there is definitely a fairly large subset of Buddhists who would maintain that even to call Nirvana a 'something' (even if its beyond existence and non-existence) is still wrong and that it has to be understood as empty.

[Anonymous No.14652493]

>>14652349
>No, because under this view you would still somehow undergo rebirth into another life to experience suffering and would continue to do so until you had the complete realization of emptiness.
Isn't "complete realization" then complete and utter extinction? This idea of Nirvana is usually something most Buddhists seem to want to reject as a
common misunderstanding by Orientalists or a Christian polemic against Buddhism.

[Anonymous No.14652761]

>>14652493
>Isn't "complete realization" then complete and utter extinction?
Yes, it would appear to be so. The Buddha does after all use some words in the Pali Canon which I've seen translated as 'extinction'

[Anonymous No.14653078]

You know, it's really crazy. I find myself living in a totally artificial environment, eating plastic food, alienated, with no real friends, in front of a computer, reading texts from Indian Anons written thousands of years ago to cope with existence... What does it all mean?

[Anonymous No.14653384]

>>14653078
that the metaphysical is timeless, as Rene Guenon (pbuh) thoughtfully points out in his writings

[Anonymous No.14653413]

>>14653078
That you've yet to transcend the extremes of existence and non-existence. You cling to them, act accordingly, and wander through the transient joys and sorrows of samsara.

Read Nagarjuna.

[Anonymous No.14653853]

>>14651248
>You may choose to believe this, but this is not the position taken by orthodox Hinduism, which holds that the Upanishads are Sruti, revealed texts that come from God and which teach the same divine teaching and are hence internally consistent. Shankara, Ramanuja, Madhva, Bhaskara, Vijnanabikshu and other Vedantins would have all condemned your view as heretical as it implies that the Sruti are not revealed texts but the product of human deliberation and debate.
I am not Hindu btw so I don't subscribe to this Sruti nonsense. The Upanishads are interpolations by sages who interpreted the Vedas after the Vedic period had ended, in fact the word literally means 'sit down nearby' implying an exchange between guru to pupil or debates between gurus. This is why you get monistic texts like the chandogya mixed in with dualistic texts like the katha within the upanishads.

[Anonymous No.14654836]

>>14653853
>I am not Hindu btw
well you're arguing with one just a heads up

[Anonymous No.14655274]

>>14653853
How can you say that the Katha Upanishad is dualistic when it has lines such as 2.2.12.

Sole, controller, the internal âtman of all living things who makes his own form diverse to the intelligent who realizes him as seated in the self, eternal bliss is theirs, not others.

also rendered by another translation as

There is one Supreme Ruler, the inmost Self of all beings, who makes His one form manifold. Eternal happiness belongs to the wise, who perceive Him within themselves−not to others.

The describing of Brahman or the Supreme as the innermost Self of all beings is typical non-dualism, there are several other passages in the Upanishad which do the same

[Anonymous No.14655780]

>>14655274
Again you are assuming there is 1 sole author of the upanishads and cherrypicking a single verse to come to your own conclusion. Katha and Maitrayani are the main Upanishads that Samkhya and Dvaita school derive their philosophy from.

>'Having understood that the senses are distinct (from the Âtman), and that their rising and setting (their waking and sleeping) belongs to them in their distinct existence (and not to the Âtman), a wise man grieves no more.' (Ka Up II, 6.6)
>This also has elsewhere been said: He who acts, is the elemental Self; he who causes to act by means of the organs, is the inner man (antahpurusha). Now as even a ball of iron, pervaded (overcome) by fire, and hammered by smiths, becomes manifold.....By these he is filled, by these he is overcome, and therefore this elemental Self assumes manifold forms, yes, manifold forms.' (Ma Up III, 3)
>The thinking Purusha (person), when he abides within the Pradhâna (nature), is the feeder who feeds on the food supplied by Prakriti (nature) (Ma Up VI, 10)

Why does it come as a shock to you that there is dualism within the Upanishads?

[Anonymous No.14655911]

>>14653853
>The Upanishads are interpolations by sages who interpreted the Vedas after the Vedic period had ended
This. How come otherwise intelligent don't perceive this transparent truth, are generally rational and critical regarding other religions, but eat pious Hindu orthodoxy whole like it was nothing (despite there even being contradictory "orthodox" schools of Vedanta)?

[Anonymous No.14656006]

>>14655911
There is no contradictory schools of vedanta from the perspective of advaita, advaita is literally the only way to unify hinduism metaphysically.

[Anonymous No.14656103]

>>14656006
Too bad the majority of hindus reject mayavada (advaita) as crypto buddhism though

[Anonymous No.14656161]

>>14656103
The Advaita-based Smarta sect that traces its founding to Shankaracharya is one of the 4 major denominations of Hinduism along with Shaivism, Vaishnavism and Shaktism,

>Four major traditions are, however, used in scholarly studies: Vaishnavism, Shaivism, Shaktism and Smartism.[1][4][5]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_denominations

>In this lesson, we'll explore the sects with the largest following: Vaishnavism, Shaivism, Shaktism, and Smartism.
https://study.com/academy/lesson/hindu-denominations-vaishnavism-shaivism-shaktism-smartism.html

[Anonymous No.14656172]

>>14656006
>guenonfag: "Verse x proves that Vedanta = Advaita"
>other guy: "Cherrypicking doesn't work because the Upanishads have many contradictory verses interpreted in diverse ways. Verses a, b, c, and d are taken to prove dualism etc."
>guenonfag: "No, because Advaita says that the Vedanta = Advaita, so all verses are Advaita"

circular reasoning, really shows the great and mighty power of advaita. no wonder they had to steal from buddhism.

>>14656161
smarta is a minority composed of mostly upper class urbanized and heavily westernized hindus. shankara was a cryptobuddhist and neovedanta is just more (heavily westernized) cryptobuddhism. since you're a westerner getting it through the guenon, you're closer to theosophy than real hinduism.

[Anonymous No.14656201]

>>14656161
The Personality of Godhead Govinda ordered Lord Shiva to take birth as Shankara to propagate impersonalism.

From the Padma Purana (Uttara-khanda 71.107) we learn how Lord Vishnu ordered Shiva to propagate monism:

svagamaih kalpitais tvam ca janan mad-vimukhan kuru

mam ca gopaya yena syat shrishöir eshottarottara

“[Lord Vishnu said:] O Shiva, make people averse to Me by writing speculative scriptures and thus hiding My glories. In this way the world’s population will increase.”

>“[Lord Vishnu said:] O Shiva, make people averse to Me by writing speculative scriptures and thus hiding My glories. In this way the world’s population will increase.”

Later in the Uttara-khanda of Padma Purana (236.7) Lord Shiva himself describes Advaita monism as veiled Buddhism: maya-vadam asac-chastram pracchanam bauddham ucyate. “Mayavada philosophy is an improper explanation of the scriptures; indeed, it is veiled Buddhism.”

>“Mayavada philosophy is an improper explanation of the scriptures; indeed, it is veiled Buddhism.”

>when God himself refutes you.

[Anonymous No.14656270]

>the mayavadin demon/atheist went silent

[Anonymous No.14656350]

>>14656006
so later turnings of the buddhism wheel really unified dharma in india?
damm

[Anonymous No.14656357]

>>14656161
>Smarta
LOL you have definitely never been to India because I know for a fact that Smarta isn't even a thing among the wider population, Vaishnavas and Shaivites engulfs Smartism by a long mile.

[Anonymous No.14656401]

>>14656357
only gay vaishnavis who are taking over everything

[Anonymous No.14656403]

>>14656357
>guenonfag the wikipedia theosophist doesn't know anything about india

No.. No, how can this be! I can't believe it!

[Anonymous No.14656416]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hN9KpDg9X0g

[Anonymous No.14656446]

>>14656357
Why does every source and website refer to it as one of the 4 major sects then? Have they all been mislead by a conspiracy of Advaitins?

[Anonymous No.14656657]

>>14656446
Well the Green Party is always referred to one of the 4 major parties in America.

[Anonymous No.14656910]

>>14655780
The traditional Hindu position is that there were multiple sages who individually received the Sruti revelation but that they all ultimately come from the same source of Brahman. What is so controversial about that can I ask? Do you go into Islam theads and throw a tantrum when people say that they consider the Quran to be the word of Allah?
>cherrypicking a single verse to come to your own conclusion.
How did I cherrypick that verse? As I mentioned there are multiple other verses in Katha which mention the Supreme Being as the Self of all beings, that's not the only one. If you want to assert that it's out of context than it's on you to explain why.

None of those verses that you cited are inherently dualistic in the sense of talking about a dualism of Atma being completely different from Brahman.

>'Having understood that the senses are distinct (from the Âtman), and that their rising and setting (their waking and sleeping) belongs to them in their distinct existence (and not to the Âtman), a wise man grieves no more.' (Ka Up II, 6.6)
Not dualistic, this is just saying that the sensory organs and their senses are different from the Atman, but this isn't dualism as even Advaita accepts that the senses and mind are housed in the subtle body which is different from the Atman

>This also has elsewhere been said: He who acts, is the elemental Self; he who causes to act by means of the organs, is the inner man (antahpurusha). Now as even a ball of iron, pervaded (overcome) by fire, and hammered by smiths, becomes manifold.....By these he is filled, by these he is overcome, and therefore this elemental Self assumes manifold forms, yes, manifold forms.' (Ma Up III, 3)
This is not dualistic either, as it does not mention Brahman, God or any Supreme Being as being different from the Atma but only makes a distinction between the elemental Self and the inner man, and the Upanishad says that the elemental Self transmigrates and is subject to suffering/confusion, which makes it correspond to the subtle body and not the Atma, and the Upanishad says that the inner self or the antahpurusa is immortal and unaffected; which corresponds to the Vedantic Atma; so the text at most implies a difference between the Atma and the subtle body which is not dualism

[Anonymous No.14656914]

>>14656910
>The thinking Purusha (person), when he abides within the Pradhâna (nature), is the feeder who feeds on the food supplied by Prakriti (nature) (Ma Up VI, 10)
This is not dualism either, as the early Upanishads predating Samhkya also use purusha and Samhkya terminology before Samhkya was even a school, Samhkya got its terminology from the Upanishads and the same words are also found in other schools so it cannot automatically be assumed that the usage there conforms to the Samhkya doctrine; and if just taken in the etymological sense of the words the sentence means the all-pervasive soul/consciousness who abides within nature is the feeder who feeds on that nature; but of course this isn't dualism because the text doesn't say whether the nature is a fundamentally opposed principal to the Purusha or a creation/emanation of it. That couldn't possibly be a reference to Samhkya doctrine anyways as in Samhkya the Purusha is unchanging and unattached and doesn't feed on anything or require any sort of sustenance whatsoever.

>>14656201
The Puranas are Smriti texts and are not authoritative, they say all sort of contradictory stuff. They are basically religiously-inspired fan-fiction (albeit with the occasional valid spiritual insight in some of them) like the Mahayana Sutras are. That verse carries no weight and does not override the teachings about maya in the Sruti, it simply means that whoever wrote that didn't want people to accept the teaching of maya that was already in the Upanishads

[Anonymous No.14657582]

[Anonymous No.14657926]

>>14657582
Lord Shiva really did a number on them huh? His shit post >>14656201 >>14649817
is getting replies to this day

[Anonymous No.14658774]

Bhakti (devotion) is superior to Jnana (knowledge). That much is beyond doubt.

[Anonymous No.14658795]

>>14649817
So the world is an illusion but the Self is real? What does the Self mean then?

[Anonymous No.14658860]

If you read the Sanskrit you find that the letters have a certain depth and fullness, a transparent luminosity which seems almost solid, coming off the page transcendentally in a 3d way perceptible to the psychic vision popping off unlike the original 2d ink on paper.
When I read the quotations, I find a difference in that Shankara's writing is finer and more fluid, as though it were made of a more transparent light. My sense about his nondual awareness was that it was expansive and free. The other commentators are very much traditional and grounded in their texture.
With respect to all of them, I would conclude that Shankara is positing something new and the others are responding based on their interpretations of scripture.

[Anonymous No.14658901]

>>14658860
I wish I know Sanskrit. How difficult is it compared to say Russian? There's so many things I need to learn that mastering an ancient language seems like a waste of time. But if I did I would go crazy about it. There are so many applications beside reading the texts. There's etymology, compared linguistics, a type of Kabbalah, sacred music, etc.

[Anonymous No.14658923]

>>14658901
I don't know Sanskrit, I just read it a little. I would start with Devanagari and then learn your favourite words you already know. Maybe the names of the gods, or some favourite mantras. You must remember that Sanskrit is modular. The sacred syllable ॐ is the basis of every other sound. All the vocalisations put together sound like aum. The Vedas are the breath of Brahman, in and out. Every mantra works like that. It's like the entire cyclical cosmology is embedded in the yoga system because the human body and ts chakras replay the world in the way that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.
Compare with Mayan calendar: https://www.xzone.com.au/tzolkin/tzolkin.html

[Anonymous No.14659270]

>>14651678
Besides Nagarjuna, what else can I read? I'm having difficulties to find any good madhyamika writers from XIX - XXI centuries.

[Anonymous No.14659581]

>>14656910
>The traditional Hindu position is that there were multiple sages who individually received the Sruti revelation but that they all ultimately come from the same source of Brahman
So you are essentially saying all the sages of the upanishads with their varying ideas imprinted into the oral tradition were Advaitins, is that what you're getting at?

>Do you go into Islam theads and throw a tantrum when people say that they consider the Quran to be the word of Allah?
Why do you keep insisting that I care about your or other peoples religious belief? Do you go into a scholarly seminar and throw a tantrum when people say the Upanishads were anonymous interpretations of the Vedas? (I hope you don't)

>How did I cherrypick that verse? As I mentioned there are multiple other verses in Katha which mention the Supreme Being as the Self of all beings, that's not the only one. If you want to assert that it's out of context than it's on you to explain why.
You literally brought up one verse after being shocked that the Upanishads contain dualism, so yes that is cherry picking.

>Not dualistic, this is just saying that the sensory organs and their senses are different from the Atman, but this isn't dualism as even Advaita accepts that the senses and mind are housed in the subtle body which is different from the Atman
It sets the prakriti as its own 'existence' due to the sense organs being distinct from Atman, it is only not dualistic according to your opinion.

>This is not dualistic either, as it does not mention Brahman, God or any Supreme Being as being different from the Atma but only makes a distinction between the elemental Self and the inner man, and the Upanishad says that the elemental Self transmigrates and is subject to suffering/confusion, which makes it correspond to the subtle body and not the Atma, and the Upanishad says that the inner self or the antahpurusa is immortal and unaffected; which corresponds to the Vedantic Atma; so the text at most implies a difference between the Atma and the subtle body which is not dualism
Dualism doesn't mean Brahman isn't Atman, it just means that reality is composed of a conscious aspect (purusha/atman) and material aspect (prakriti). You are simply reading these verses with an assumption of monism and then attempting to explain that 'a-akshually its the subtle body btw'. The Samkhya and Dvaita Vedantists cite many of these upanishads as dualist texts.

[Anonymous No.14659663]

>>14655274
>The Upanishadic age was also characterized by a pluralism of worldviews. While some Upanishads have been deemed 'monistic', others, including the Katha Upanishad, are dualistic. Monism holds that reality is one – Brahman – and that all multiplicity (matter, individual souls) is ultimately reducible to that one reality. The Katha Upanishad, a relatively late text of the Black Yajurveda, is more complex. It teaches Brahman, like other Upanishads, but it also states that above the 'unmanifest' (Brahman) stands Purusha, or 'Person'. This claim originated in Samkhya (analysis) philosophy, which split all of reality into two coeternal principles: spirit (purusha) and primordial matrix (prakriti). (Glucklich, 2008)

[Anonymous No.14659675]

>>14659663
this

posting more dualism from other upanishads:
>He who, after he has done that work and rested again, and after he has brought together one essence (the self) with the other (matter), with one, two, three, or eight, with time also and with the subtile qualities of the mind (Sv Up VI, 6)
>The Supreme Lord appears as Isvara, omniscient and omnipotent and as the jiva, of limited knowledge and power, both unborn. But this does not deny the phenomenal universe; for there exists further the unborn prakriti, which creates the ideas of the enjoyer, enjoyment and the object. Atman is infinite and all-pervading and therefore devoid of agency. When the seeker knows all these three to be Brahman, he is freed from his fetters. (Sv Up I, 9)

[Anonymous No.14659834]

>>14659270
are you asking for recommendations of Buddhist or non-Buddhist eastern stuff?

[Anonymous No.14659850]

>>14659270
>madhyamika
Your anus is going to hurt in the hellish realms.

[Anonymous No.14659932]

>>14659834
>madhyamika
buddhist

[Anonymous No.14659943]

>>14659850
Please, die.>>14659850

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Madhyamika

[Anonymous No.14659952]

>>14659943
I'll go to heaven when I do.
You're not going to find your precious void when you die. You're going to be raped by demons in hell.

[Anonymous No.14660460]

>>14659581
>all the sages of the upanishads with their varying ideas imprinted into the oral tradition were Advaitins, is that what you're getting at?
No, it's just that Hindus more understand that there is an eternal truth which was revealed to a group of sages, and that because of it's very divine origin this truth in the Sruti was by default of one nature and internally consistent in essence, it did not teach widely diverging things; regardless of the form it took in the speech of each sage. That point aside I was talking about the Advaita arguments for why if this axiom of orthodox Hinduism be accepted then their interpretation becomes more logical.
>Why do you keep insisting that I care about your or other peoples religious belief?
Because you are trying to turn this in an anthropological discussion of Indian religions rather than a discussion of the actual inter-school debates and the actual doctrine/metaphysics. When you say "well Advaita's veiw is wrong because of this viewpoint I assert which neither Advaita nor any of the other Vedanta schools would accept as valid" then the conversation no longer has any real connection to the actual philosophy involved but instead then the discussion enters into the realm of anthropology and 'social science', maybe you were doing it out of ignorance, I don't know. I'm not really interested in that as in such a discussion there is no real deep and intuitive understanding possible of the relevent spiritual or metaphysical teachings and the associated spiritiual practices/benefits etc involved. In a seminar it's a given that the lecturer would assume an anthropological perspective but we are not in a lecture hall. I find the anthropological study of this and its perspective to be much less interesting and often totally irrelevant. The whole of western Indological scholarsip has only produced some irrelevant factoids involving dating, questions of authorship and a few obscure linguistic anolomies, it hasn't produced any important insight which has fundamental implications for Hindu philosophy or Hinduism in general that medieval-era Hindus didn't already know themselves.

>so yes that is cherry picking
There are many other verses in Katha about non-dualism such as in
Katha 1.3.12 and 1.2.22. both talk about the Atman being all-pervading and in all bodies
Katha 2.1.5. talks about knowing the Atman as the Lord of the past and future
Katha 2.1.11. says that seeing multiplicity leads to transmigration
Katha 2.3.17. identifies the Atman with the Purusha that the Upanishad elsewhere identifies with Brahman such as in 2.2.8.

[Anonymous No.14660468]

>>14660460
>just means that reality is composed of a conscious aspect (purusha/atman) and material aspect (prakriti)
Ah but you see this is nowhere near what's needed to contradict the Upanishad statements which affirm that the Atman is Brahman. You know as well as I do that there are countless Upanishadic passages which say "The Atman is Brahman", "I am Brahman", "Brahman is the inner Atman", "This Atman is Brahman" "Brahman is the Atman of all beings" etc, Meanwhile there is not a single passage in the primary Upanishads which uses the words Atman and Brahman to say "Brahman is not the Atman" or "Atman is not the same as Brahman" etc. The composing of the world with both the conscious and non-conscious (which even Advaita admits as the elements in Advaita are non-conscious) does not disprove that the Atman is Brahman because it's not exclusive with that notion in any way. And it remains a simple logical proposition that in the absence of any verses explicitly saying "Atman is not Brahman" that it makes no sense to discard as wrong the dozens of Upanishad verses which explicitly say that Atman is Brahman.

>>14659663
>including the Katha Upanishad, are dualistic
Among other ones, the five Katha verses I cited above plus the 1 I cited originally show otherwise
>The Katha Upanishad, a relatively late text of the Black Yajurveda, is more complex. It teaches Brahman, like other Upanishads, but it also states that above the 'unmanifest' (Brahman) stands Purusha, or 'Person'
Can you cite the passage this is talking about? I'm pretty that it says 'unmanifest' and not Brahman, one cannot automatically assume on this word that it is saying the Purusa is higher then Brahman, especially when the same Upanishad explicitly asserts that the Purusha IS Brahman in 2.2.8:

"He, the Purusha, who remains awake while the sense−organs are asleep, shaping one lovely form after another, that indeed is the Pure, that is Brahman and that alone is called the Immortal"

[Anonymous No.14660502]

>>14659663
>>14659675
unironically where can i read more about this? what's the best book on the development of the upanishads that takes all possibilities into account fairly and doesn't force a neo-vedantist framework onto it?

[Anonymous No.14660655]

>>14660460
>and that because of it's very divine origin this truth in the Sruti was by default of one nature and internally consistent in essence
by one nature you obviously mean 'Advaitic' nature don't you?

>When you say "well Advaita's veiw is wrong because of this viewpoint I assert which neither Advaita nor any of the other Vedanta schools would accept as valid" then the conversation no longer has any real connection to the actual philosophy involved but instead then the discussion enters into the realm of anthropology and 'social science', maybe you were doing it out of ignorance, I don't know
I haven't said 'Advaita is wrong', I have said that an Advaitic interpretation does not naturally proceed from the Upanishads. Again I am not Hindu but you may be a Hindu (?) so I understand how you could be offended when someone points the fact that your subsect of Vedanta isn't the only valid school.

>I'm not really interested in that as in such a discussion there is no real deep and intuitive understanding possible of the relevent spiritual or metaphysical teachings and the associated spiritiual practices/benefits etc involved. In a seminar it's a given that the lecturer would assume an anthropological perspective but we are not in a lecture hall. I find the anthropological study of this and its perspective to be much less interesting and often totally irrelevant. The whole of western Indological scholarsip has only produced some irrelevant factoids involving dating, questions of authorship and a few obscure linguistic anolomies, it hasn't produced any important insight which has fundamental implications for Hindu philosophy or Hinduism in general that medieval-era Hindus didn't already know themselves.
No you don't have to believe in Hindu nonsense to analyze the philosophy of the Upanishads, just like you don't have to believe in God in order to understand the philosophy of the bible, quran, etc. Actual Indian scholars themselves have more or less agreed with western scholarship about the authorship of the Upanishads and how you can extract more than just non-dualism out of it. Honestly this whole discussion of religious meritocracy concerning texts is pointless and devoid of actual argument.

>There are many other verses in Katha about non-dualism such as in
Like I said if you'd bother reading, the Upanishads isn't authored by a single person. A multitude of people have passed down their ideas into these books and therefore you could find monism and dualism in many places together.

>The Upanishadic age was characterized by a pluralism of worldviews. While some Upanishads have been deemed 'monistic', others, including the Katha Upanishad, are dualistic.[92] The Maitri is one of the Upanishads that inclines more toward dualism, thus grounding classical Samkhya and Yoga schools of Hinduism, in contrast to the non-dualistic Upanishads at the foundation of its Vedanta school.[93] They contain a plurality of ideas.[94][note 11]

[Anonymous No.14660808]

So is the Middle Path agnostic or atheistic with regard to what is beyond maya?

[Anonymous No.14661119]

>>14660468
>Ah but you see this is nowhere near what's needed to contradict the Upanishad statements which affirm that the Atman is Brahman.
You seem to assume Advaita = Upanishads and that other schools are simply trying to contradict the Upanishads. They are simply trying to interpret the Upanishads.

>You know as well as I do that there are countless Upanishadic passages which say "The Atman is Brahman", "I am Brahman", "Brahman is the inner Atman", "This Atman is Brahman" "Brahman is the Atman of all beings" etc, Meanwhile there is not a single passage in the primary Upanishads which uses the words Atman and Brahman to say "Brahman is not the Atman" or "Atman is not the same as Brahman" etc. The composing of the world with both the conscious and non-conscious (which even Advaita admits as the elements in Advaita are non-conscious) does not disprove that the Atman is Brahman because it's not exclusive with that notion in any way. And it remains a simple logical proposition that in the absence of any verses explicitly saying "Atman is not Brahman" that it makes no sense to discard as wrong the dozens of Upanishad verses which explicitly say that Atman is Brahman.
Again the point is not that these dualist notions are trying to disprove 'Atman is Brahman' (which isn't found 'countless' times btw but is propounded a fair bit in some upanishads), this is just your opinion. The various schools of thought are simply arguing what the exact nature of this formulation entails in comparison to other verses/upanishads that propound dualism (or qualified monism for that matter). It also seems fallacious to simply say that something has to refer exactly to passage X in order for Y to be substantiated.

>Can you cite the passage this is talking about?
I think its Katha Upanishad 1.3.11

>I'm pretty that it says 'unmanifest' and not Brahman, one cannot automatically assume on this word that it is saying the Purusa is higher then Brahman
Isn't the Unmanifested just Nirguna Brahman?

>especially when the same Upanishad explicitly asserts that the Purusha IS Brahman in 2.2.8:
The Purusha mentioned in 2.2.8 seems to refer to the Jiva (who presumably becomes pure and awoken) which is mentioned in the previous verses 2.2.7-2.2.6
>To thee, Oh Gautama, I will explain the secret ancient Brahman and also how after death, the âtman becomes. Some jîvas (dehinah) go into wombs to be embodied; others pass into the immovable, according to their karma and to their knowledge.

[Anonymous No.14661542]

/lit/ards seethe about philosophy, Guenon threads but the discussions about Hindu philosophy are actually on a relatively high level.

Bump

[Anonymous No.14662281]

>>14661542
yeah agreed

>>14661119
for the record your posts are appreciated

[Anonymous No.14662562]

>>14659270
Get this book
>Introduction to the Middle Way: Chandrakirti's Madhyamakavatara with Commentary by Ju Mipham
Born in 1846 so he was probably the last great one but also one of the absolute greatest. You can find the book for free online.

[Anonymous No.14662582]

>>14661119
>Isn't the Unmanifested just Nirguna Brahman?
According to Shankara the unmanifested or the avyaktam refers to the universe existing in a latent state during the universal dissolution at the end of a cycle of universal manifestation. In between cycles of manifestation the whole universe is withdrawn from manifestation back into the unmanifest where it exists in a latent state until made manifest again when the next cycle begins. It wouldn't make sense to assume that the avyaktam (the word used in verse 1.3.11.) refers to Nirguna Brahman as Nirguna Brahman is supposed to be beyond and prior to the distinctions of manifest and unmanifest and is itself the cause of those two categories.
> It also seems fallacious to simply say that something has to refer exactly to passage X in order for Y to be substantiated.
No it's not. Because the Vedanta schools accept the axiom that the Sruti are an internally consistent revealed teaching, and thus for them it becomes a sort of mathematical equation where one has to come up with a formula that reconciles all of the Sruti to be consistent. If there are verses which explicitly contradict the main thesis of a certain school's formula (such as the verses saying "Atman is Brahman" contradicting the main thesis of Dvaita) then in order for that school to show that their formula really does reconcile the Sruti as consistent then it becomes incumbent upon them to explain why their position is right despite it being explicitly and directly contradicted in multiple verses. Again, I'm not talking about the viewpoint which says "there are many different ideas in the Upanishads and each school rightly finds different ideas in them", I'm simply talking about understanding the Upanishads from the perspective of the Vedanta schools themselves, i.e. adhering to the axioms that all those schools accept. If we put ourselves into the shoes of the Vedanta schools and accept the base premises which they all accept then it does indeed become the sort of situation where if someone makes a certain metaphysical claim and wants it to be taken seriously by others who accept those same starting axioms (such as the other schools) then it becomes necessary for them to explain why it's right despite it being explicitly contradicted by other Upanishads.

[Anonymous No.14662585]

>>14662582
>The Purusha mentioned in 2.2.8 seems to refer to the Jiva (who presumably becomes pure and awoken) which is mentioned in the previous verses 2.2.7-2.2.6
The Upanishad makes the identification of the Purusha with Brahman in 2.2.8. thus "He, the Purusha, who remains awake while the sense−organs are asleep, shaping one lovely form after another, that indeed is the Pure, that is Brahman and that alone is called the Immortal." The sentence starts out with mentioning the Purusha and then proceeds to continue talking about the Purusha without any indication that second or new subject is suddenly being described, in the middle of the verse it says "that (Purusha) indeed is the Pure, that (Purusha) is Brahman. It would make little sense to abandon the direct and surface-level meaning of the sentence for something different that one has to read into the text using previous verses.

This Purusha is equated with the Atman later in the Upanishad when it says in 2.3.17. "The Purusha, not larger than a thumb, the inner Self, always dwells in the hearts of men. Let a man separate Him from his body with steadiness, as one separates the tender stalk from a blade of grass. Let him know that Self as the Bright, as the Immortal−yea, as the Bright, as the Immortal."

The Upanishad seems to clearly equate the Purusha with Brahman in 2.2.8. and then equates the Purusha with the Atman in 2.3.17.; further confirmation of this follows from that in 2.2.8. it says of the Purusha "that is Brahman and that alone is called the Immortal", and then in 2.3.17. says to let him know the Self as the Immortal. By the standard established in 2.2.8. when it says that the Purusha-Brahman alone is called the immortal it becomes a double confirmation of the identity of the Atman and the Purusha-Brahman in 2.3.17. when it says the Self is the Immortal, because it is a label which 2.2.8. says is only to be used for the Purusha-Brahman.

[Anonymous No.14662627]

>>14649817
he is advaita, not a buddhist.
if you read earlier advaitas like Gaudapada some of the stuff they write about strikes very close to Madhyamaka buddhism, but there is plenty of stuff about the consciousness and the epistemological nature of the self, which are not related to the idea of Sunyata.
It's only the madhva dvaitists who get upset at advaita because they see god in a more dualistic (abrahamic) sense, in which realising yourself to be god is a big no no.

[Anonymous No.14662932]

>>14662562
Thank you, sir.

[Anonymous No.14663308]

>>14662627
It's not only the madhva types, it's vishishtadvaita and probably most low-level bhakti worshipers too. Most people see Advaita as cryptobuddhism because it takes so much from Mahayana.

[Anonymous No.14664286]

>>14663308
It's really only the intellectuals in the cities who are disinclined to practice traditional religion, which usually leans towards bhakti, who are drawn to advaita. No wonder it fit into the western ethos so smoothly, just like Buddhism.

[Anonymous No.14664599]

>>14664286
Yeah it's interesting how it even maintains a racist/colonialist dimension, and I don't say this lightly since I usually think "EVERYTHING IS ABOUT COLONIALISM!!" is a sensationalist academic trash outlook. But one of the reasons for formulating neo-Vedanta in the first place was a desire to "purify" Hinduism and find the "original" Hinduism. This desire came largely from Europeans who looked at contemporary Hindus as backward retards, easily conquered and destined to be led by whites, and later was taken up by native Hindus who desired to repudiate European rule by saying fuck off, India is a great nation with a great national heritage and religious/philosophical tradition, we don't need/deserve to be "led" by anybody.

It's an interesting ambiguity in the history of modern India that Europeans both oppressed Indians and gave them the initial tools to respect themselves. The question becomes, can you take up a tool created by your oppressors to cast off the oppressors, without being somehow compromised by them?

It's similar to Japan or South Korea. Does it mean they are "successful" or "independent" of the West if the price of their prosperity and equality was to become more like the West? To start wearing suits and doing capitalist business? The surge in interest in Advaita Vedanta in the 19th century owes a huge debt to Westerners saying this is what a real religion should look like, these are the standards by which success is judged.

[Anonymous No.14665425]

bumping a thread with interesting discussion

[Anonymous No.14665725]

>>14650822
>Adi Shankara is beyond all criticism
>All criticisms were predicted and answered by him
>He was the highest genius
The cult of personality surrounding Shankara makes me suspicious of his actual philosophical merit. I'm inclined to read his main work but I'm embarrassed to even entertain him amid an active (and cringeworthy) shill force in this board, let alone the drove of e-Pajeets swarming all corners of the net to display their unconditional devotion to him in that way.

[Anonymous No.14665736]

>>14665725
>The cult of personality surrounding Shankara makes me suspicious of his actual philosophical merit
but why would you say that anon?

It's not as if Shankara is in bad company now is he

[Anonymous No.14666350]

>>14665736
Not to mention pretty much all of the Indian gurus and yogis who became popular in the west such as Vivekananda, Yogananda and Maharishi were Advaitans. Ghandi was one too.

[Anonymous No.14666462]

>>14666350
>Indian fraudsters were Advaitin
you don’t say...