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Re: Animal-Killing, and Soul-Merging Condemned
In article <4es1pu$gi6@babbage.ece.uc.edu>,
Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian <rbalasub@ecn.purdue.edu> wrote:
>> In article <4ekm5d$91g@babbage.ece.uc.edu>,
>> Ken Stuart <kstuart@snowcrest.net> wrote:
>> >All the following are my understandings of Vaishnava doctrine:
>> >1) Shankara was an incarnation of God to lead people from an
>> >atheistic Buddhism to an impersonalistic Advaita, since the latter was
>> >better for them (even though it wasn't the ultimate viewpoint).
Shrisha Rao pointed out that this was false according to the Maadhva school;
it is also false according to the Gaudiya Vaishnava school -- Shankara
is considered an incarnation of Shiva sent by the Lord (Narayana) to
preach the mayavada philosophy.
As for being better or worse than Buddhism, I've seen both sides taken among
Gaudiya Vaishnavas; however, all consider it (just as the Maadhva school
does) to be "pracchanam bauddham".
>Ken, did you by any chance get this "better for them" thing from
>the ISKCON homepage on Shankara? If so I must tell you that the person who
>wrote it has a good imagination, but a not so good talent for detail. It is a
>well known fact that Kumarila Bhatta was the person who defeated the Buddhists
>and NOT Shankara.
Can you say which homepage this is? I maintain a large list of
ISKCON-related links (http://www-ece.rice.edu/~vijaypai/hkindex.html)
and can find no page that refers to Shankara having defeated the
Buddhists. Following 2 or 3 links, I can find an ISKCON-maintained
page that asserts that Shankara's philosophy is covered Buddhism, but
nothing that suggests that Shankara defeated Buddhism. So, which are
you talking about?
-- Vijay
