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Re: Advaita
The discussion between Vidyasankar Sundaresan
and Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian bring out two
aspects of advaita.
Although GauDapaada and Shankara were both advaitins,
there is a vital difference between their approaches.
Gaudapaada explains everything from the paaramaarthika
view point whereas Shankara explains both from the
paaramaarthika and vyaavahaarika view points. Ofcourse,
the terms paaramaarthika and vyaavahaarika satya were
invented by later advaitins; neither Shankara nor
GauDapaada used them.
Another observation is the way Shankara treats the reality
of the world vis-a-vis the reality of a dream. For him,
the world is ultimately unreal, but it is more
consistent than a dream which is pure imagination.
Thus the world is somehow "more" real than a dream.
Shankara is more of a "realist" than GauDapaada.
GauDapaada, on the other hand, makes no distinction
between the unreality of the world and that of the
dream. In fact, in his MaaNDuukya kaarika he explains
that the world is as imaginary as a dream.
Shankara never decried worship of the SaguNa Brahman, but
GauDapaada condemns this in his kaarika. He calls a person
who meditates or worships the conditioned Brahman, a
pitiable one.
Anand
