Vedanta and Philosophy

Pandya

03:49

@KeshavSrinivasan ok;

@KeshavSrinivasan Yes I see...

Keshav Srinivasan

04:52

@Pandya By the way, I find that often the best way to learn about a sect of Hinduism that I'm not familiar with is to read their commentary on the Brahma Sutras. That's one of the reasons why I post so many questions asking for commentaries on the Brahma Sutras.

@Pandya Here are some of the commentaries I'd like to find in English: Bhaskara's commentary advocating Aupadhika Bhedabheda; the Shrikara Bhashya, which is the Lingayat commentary advocating Shakti Visistadvaita; Srinivasa Dikshitar's Vaikhanasa commentary advocating Lakshmi Visistadvaita; Vallabhacharya's Anubhashya advocating Shuddhadvaita; any Swaminarayan sect commentary; and any Ramanandi commentary.

Pandya

@KeshavSrinivasan Yes, we discussed earlier about Anubhashya (Suddhadvaita) I think...

@KeshavSrinivasan I've just see your comments. I've edited to expounder/founder; how about it?

And By the way should I include the difference between schools (in that answer) or it is not needed as I've mentioned about it in asnwer:

1

A: Dvaitas vs Advaitas vs Vishist Dvaitas vs Shuddhadvaitas vs any other

Q.I hear these terms Dvaitas, Advaitas, Vishistdvaitas, Shuddhadvaitas, and may be any other XYZdvaitas, etc in most of the questions but I am not very sure what do they refer to. There are six Darshan (षडदर्शन) i.e philosophy in Hinduism which are Samkhya, Yoga, Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Mimamsa ...

@KeshavSrinivasan I'm looking for better and suitable English word for that like main proponent etc...

Keshav Srinivasan

05:16

@Pandya "Chief exponent" would be a good way to phrase it.

@Pandya In any case yes, you should explain the differences between these philosophies, since that's part of what the OP asked in the question.

Pandya

@KeshavSrinivasan ok; I've used founder or chief exponent that may be better ;Thanks for pointing out.

Keshav Srinivasan

@Pandya OK, that's good.

Pandya

@KeshavSrinivasan Hmm.. So, It takes me some time to write difference.

@KeshavSrinivasan I think I can write difference in short or should I do into deep?

Keshav Srinivasan

@Pandya Well, one way to do it would be to make a table where you compare the positions of each philosophy on different issues. Like one column could be "Is the world real or illusory", and then you could put yes or no for each philosophy.

@Pandya But yeah, that could end up being a lot of work. I suppose you could just give a one or two sentence summary of each philosophy.

@Pandya By the way, if you ever need to quickly compare how different commentaries interpret a given Sutra in the Brahma Sutras, there's a really helpful book that can help you. See here:

in Discussion between Keshav Srinivasan and brahma jijnasa, Apr 27 at 15:23, by Keshav Srinivasan

@brahmajijnasa By the way, if like me you ever want to compare what a bunch of different commentaries on the Brahma Sutras say on some topic (which admittedly is a pretty nerdy thing to do), you can use Roma Bose's translation of Nimbarka's Vedanta Parijata Saurabha.

in Discussion between Keshav Srinivasan and brahma jijnasa, Apr 27 at 15:25, by Keshav Srinivasan

@brahmajijnasa It's a translation of Nimbarka's commentary on the Brahma Sutras, but it's more than that; for each Sutra, it describes how Nimbarka's interpretation of the Sutra compares with the interpretations of Adi Shankaracharya, Bhaskara, Ramanujacharya, Srikantha Shivacharya, and Baladeva Vidyabhushana. Here's volume 1: http://gdurl.com/dOYx/download Here's volume 2: http://gdurl.com/o8IR And here's volume 3: http://gdurl.com/ibWG/download

in Discussion between Keshav Srinivasan and brahma jijnasa, Apr 27 at 15:30, by Keshav Srinivasan

@brahmajijnasa The only major commentaries that aren't covered are Madhvacharya's Brahma Sutra Bhashya and Vallabhacharya's Anubhashya.

Pandya

@KeshavSrinivasan I know about Advaita and Vishishtadvaita enough (I think). also know about Suddhadvaita. But bit about Dvaita. (Achintya Bhedabheda and Dvaitadvaita looks me similar!)

@KeshavSrinivasan Finally I've decided to post 3-4 sentence about it in my answer. I'll inform you when I complete.

Keshav Srinivasan

05:34

@Pandya Well, both of them are part of a broad category of philosophies called Bhedabheda. There is Bhaskara's philosophy of Aupadhika Bhedabheda, Yadavaprakasa's philosophy of Svabhavika Bhedabheda, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's philosophy of Achintya Bhedabheda, Nimbarka's philosophy of Dvaitadvaita, etc.

@Pandya Even the Lingayat philosophy of Shakti Visistadvaita has the alternate names "Dvaitadvaitabidhana Viseshadvaita" and "Bhedabhedatmaka Viseshadvaita", which are just horrendously complicated names. So it also falls into the Bhedabheda category.

@Pandya OK, that sounds good.

@Pandya By the way, Yadava Prakasha, the proponent of Svabhavika Bhedabheda, was Ramanujacharya's guru whom Ramanujacharya left over that "monkey's butt" issue we were discussing earlier.

Pandya

@KeshavSrinivasan Thanks for information but I think I'll provide information about popular philosophies only i.e Advaita, Vishishtadvaita, Dvaita, Shuddhadvaita, Achintya Bhedabheda and Dvaitadvaita. Explaining further sub-philosophies of Bhedabheda looks broad to me and also I don't know about them!

Is it ok?

Keshav Srinivasan

@Pandya Yeah, I was just telling you about the Bhedabheda category because you mentioned that Achintya Bhedabheda and Dvaitadvaita sound similar.

@Pandya But yeah, it's fine to just give explanations of the major ones.

Pandya

@KeshavSrinivasan oh! yes. Thanks; I appreciate your knowledge about them and your research on them!

Krishn Shweta

@KeshavSrinivasan @Pandya Hello....

Keshav Srinivasan

@KrishnShweta Hi

Pandya

05:48

@KrishnShweta ...Hello!

Krishn Shweta

Why do we have Advaita and similar to this? (I don't remember the names)

Advaita, Vishishtadvaita, Dvaita, Shuddhadvaita, Achintya Bhedabheda and Dvaitadvaita.

Pandya

@KrishnShweta can you clarify your question bit more?

Keshav Srinivasan

@KrishnShweta The names all have to do with the relationship between Jivatma and Paramatmaa. "Advaita" means "not two", i.e. Jivatma and Paramatma being the same. "Dvaita" means "two", i.e. Jivatma and Paramatma being different.

@KrishnShweta Each of these words refers to a different theory about how Jivatmas and Paramatma are related.

Krishn Shweta

@Pandya Exactly what @KeshavSrinivasan is explaining.

Pandya

@KrishnShweta ok; Have you visited hinduism.stackexchange.com/a/14779/277?

Krishn Shweta

05:54

Who defined all these? Is it written in our puranas?

@Pandya Oh!! I'll take a look at that.

Pandya

It is the realization of Acharyas and translation of that realization into words! (with reference to Prashthanatrayi)

Krishn Shweta

@Pandya That question is exactly what I'm asking. Thanks.

Keshav Srinivasan

@KrishnaShweta No, these names aren't mentioned in the Puranas. The names were invented much later than that. The issue is that there are certain statements in the Upanishads that are difficult to understand, so different philosophers have developed different theories as to what these statements mean.

Krishn Shweta

I see.

@KeshavSrinivasan I'll let you if I have any doubts further.

Keshav Srinivasan

@KrishnShweta OK, by the way, your family belongs to the Rudra Sampradayam, so the theory that your sect believes in is Vallabhacharya's philosophy of Shuddhadvaita; see here:

Shuddhadvaita

Shuddadvaita (Sanskrit: śuddhādvaita "pure non-dualism") is the "purely non-dual" philosophy propounded by Vallabhacharya (1479-1531 CE), the founding philosopher and guru of the Vallabhā sampradāya ("tradition of Vallabh") or Puśtimārg ("The path of grace"), a Hindu Vaishnava tradition focused on the worship of Krishna. Vallabhacharya's pure form (nondualist) philosophy is different from Advaita. The Shrinathji temple at Nathdwara, and compositions of eight poets (aṣṭachap), including Surdas, are central to the worship by the followers of the sect. == Location == Though the tradition originated...

Krishn Shweta

06:08

@KeshavSrinivasan Oh!

OK........

The Destroyer

@KeshavSrinivasan If Visistaadvaita is Advaita, why it gives name for Brahman?

Keshav Srinivasan

06:21

@TheDestroyer Visistadvaita means "qualified monism." The monism part refers to the fact that there is a larger whole called Brahman, but Brahman is qualified by attributes, specifically Chit (souls) and Achit (matter).

@TheDestroyer We believe that Brahman is Saguna, not Nirguna, so there's no problem with Brahman having a name.

The Destroyer

@KeshavSrinivasan But why only Brahman has only auspicious qualities? Without Brahman, how can world get inauspicious qualities? In Advaita, Brahman is beyond auspicious and inauspicious and both auspicious and inauspicious are Maya.

Keshav Srinivasan

@TheDestroyer Sriman Narayana naturally has only auspicious qualities, but he is able to transform a part of himself into something that has a mixture of Gunas. That is what we call physical matter.

The Destroyer

06:38

@KeshavSrinivasan Ok. Auspicious and inauspicious both must be Brahman or something beyond and i think we can't limit Brahman only to Auspicious Qualities. Also, why only few Attributes as names to Brahman? Example, Shivam itself is auspicious and Shakti itself is power both are also Auspicious attributes.

Keshav Srinivasan

@TheDestroyer Well, Vishnu has numerous names. His glories are limitless. That's why there are things like the Vishnu Sahasranamam.

The Destroyer

@KeshavSrinivasan But why it repeats the names? Only Lalitha Sahasranamam has unique names without repetition.

@KeshavSrinivasan I think Visistadvaita, Shuddaadvaita, or someRandomAdvaita are propagated by die hard Vishnu devotees who didn't like equality.

@KeshavSrinivasan Advaita says Maya itself is Maya and no Acharya of Advaita can really say the reason why maya exists? All they can say is Maya is Maya and no use in knowing the reason as it is simply Maya and doesn't exist. Can Visistaadvaita explain reason for existence of Maya?

Pandya

09:50

@KeshavSrinivasan For learning Suddhadvaita, this may helpful.

The Destroyer

10:33

@TriyugiNarayanMani How did you find OM in Brahmi script?

Triyugi Narayan Mani

10:52

I have searched this ॐ ब्राह्मी लिपि

@TheDestroyer

The Destroyer

11:37

@TriyugiNarayanMani Good.

@TriyugiNarayanMani but still i'm not sure whether that is true or not to accept your answer.

Triyugi Narayan Mani

@TheDestroyer OK. No problem. Still you can upvote :-)

The Destroyer

@TriyugiNarayanMani I already upvoted.

Triyugi Narayan Mani

@TheDestroyer Thanks. BTW I will look into more details tonight.

The Destroyer

@TriyugiNarayanMani Ok.

The Destroyer

11:59

Found it on this IIT site.

gitasupersite.iitk.ac.in

@KeshavSrinivasan @Pandya @SwiftPushkar @TriyugiNarayanMani @Tezz Vedanta concept Map

gitasupersite.iitk.ac.in/sites/default/files/vedanta%202.11.pdf

Triyugi Narayan Mani

@TheDestroyer Its great

SwiftPushkar