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Re: Stuff from "Vedic cosmography and astronomy" (was Re: The moon ..)

vivek@cs.rice.edu (Vivek Sadananda Pai) wrote:

>In article <4pqufe$5f4@babbage.ece.uc.edu>, 
>Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian <rbalasub@ecn.purdue.edu> writes:
>[...]
>|> Final Comments:
>|> 
>|> 1. I am extremely disappointed by the general mis-representation of the book by
>|>    both HKS and Vivek Pai. I thought that they were probably right and Mr
>|>    Pement must have mis-interpreted it due to his lack of understanding of the
>|>    Indian tradition, but no such luck.
>
>If you're going to drag my name into your little rant, at least do me
>the honor of stating exactly where I even represented the book, specifically.
>I don't mind retracting things when I'm wrong, but if you're not specific,
>then you leave me no choice but to believe that either you're wrong
>about what you think I said, or you're intentionally being vague.

>Now, on to your "criticism". Forgive me for being terse, but I'm short of
>time these days.

I have a conference coming up and am short of time too. So I am making this my
last post on this topic.

The posts I was referring to were:

http://rbhatnagar.ececs.uc.edu:8080/srh_home/1996_3/msg00079.html (shri HKSji)
http://rbhatnagar.ececs.uc.edu:8080/srh_home/1996_3/msg00072.html (you)

I also referred to the posts on ase-c in their archives (unfortunately, I did
not save them).

Then, let me congratulate you on neatly snipping out the relevant parts of my
post and then giving answers, so that your answers look logical.

>1) though the author clearly mentions the spiritual/material distinctions
>   involved, you gloss over that part quickly and instead focus on the
>   arguments he makes which you find easier to attack. Your choice. See
>   point 4.

I certainly mentioned the "spiritual planets" concept. In fact I even conceded
that Mr Thompson may know better about what SP actually meant. However it is
clear from the book that SP _also_ doubted that the astronauts had visited the
material moon. That is why Mr Thompson, gives a photograph (given by NASA) and
gives some reason to "prove" that the US govt lied about the moon trip.

I repeat from my previous post:

----begin-----
This _clearly_ shows that whether SP had been talking about the spiritual moon
                         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
or not, he doubted the honesty of the moon travelers. Since the moon
^^^^^^^
travelers only claimed that they saw the lifeless "non-spiritual moon", it is
quite clear that SP was doubting this fact itself. The whole story of
spiritual planets etc, has been, IMO, given by Thompson to make the ISKCON
                                 ^^^
not look so ridiculous (justification of bizarre assertions, is the correct
phrase).
----end--------

Note that I did not "gloss" over the 1st explanation as you suggest. On the
other hand, shri HKSji totally ignored the latter part of the discussion by 
Thompson like giving the _photograph_. It is clear to me you want the whole
thing mis-represented.

>2) you harp on the word "honesty", apparently not realizing that it does
>   have more than one meaning in this context. The Gaudiya tradition has
>   the concept of the 4 defects of conditioned souls, so when I read those
>   lines, even with your added emphasis, I still doubt that your 
>   interpretation is necessarily the only correct one.

There can be no other, due to the _photograph_ being given. Also the
description of what might have actually happened by the phrase "man made
illusions" leaves no scope for other interpretations.

>3) The Gaudiya - Madhva connection and the arguments around it - you
>   apparently missed this whole debate on SRV. Shrisha (and others) made 
>   some arguments why they believe there isn't a link. The Gaudiyas
>   disagreed, and presented their evidence. You haven't exactly hit
>   upon anything new, either in Vaishnavism or religion in general.
>   The same argument applies to the Christians, the Mulsims, the
>   Ahmadiyyas, the Baha'i's, etc., etc. In my opinion, it's 
                                         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>   unresolvable and a waste of time.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Uhm, 

1. The claim goes that chaitanya defeated the "tattvavaadis" of Udupi
   (according to the "biography" of chaitanya).
2. The Gaudiya lineage also claims that they got their teachings from Vyaasa
   through Madhva.

Since there are philosophical differences between dvaita and gaudiya schools,
and specially since Chaitanya defeated the "tattvavaadis" of Udipi, and since
the Gaudiyas got their teachings from Vyasa _through Madhva_, in effect
Madhva was actually not a tattvavaadi, but rather a Gaudiya. In other words,
the Udipi people converted from Gaudiyaism to Tattvavaadam at a later date.
Ehrr, you must think the rest of the world is composed of simpletons to
believe in such things. May be the argument is unresolvable for you, but not
for the rest of us. Certainly it's a waste of time for you, since logic does
not support the Gaudiya's preposterous claims.

When I asked Shrisha Rao about this Gaudiya-Madhva "link" (personal mail), I 
had not read the BMG Chaitanya thread in srv. Shrisha referred me to this
thread and I did read it after that. I am afraid, I cannot agree with your
claim that the "Gaudiyas presented their evidence". It was merely lot of hocus
pocus, which was finally dealt a death blow by H.P. Ragunandan.

For the readers of srh: In the last part of the thread the Gaudiyas quoted some
verse from Krishna upanishad, which "proved" the divinity of Chaitanya.
Unfortunately, as Ragunandan pointed out, the verse was no where to be found
in the upanishad. In fact the quoted verse was supposedly from the 2nd chapter
of the krishna upanishad, while there was only one chapter in the upanishad.
Huh!

>4) The dual nature of things - this argument seems to indicate that you
>   aren't familiar with Gaudiya thought. For example - Krishna is always
>   present in certain places in certain forms, but you may not see Him
>   if you go there. Why? Because you don't have the capability of doing
>   so. Brings back the whole Universal Form thing from the BG.

Yawn. The dual nature revealed for example, by extra chapters appearing in
upanishads? So that your upanishad is not any one else's and so on? 

>5) Puranic and Vedic being interchangeable - this stems back to the
>   whole Puranas as the fifth Veda argument. Also old news, and has
>   been (re)hashed to death, with no general agreement.

Small correction: There has been general agreement that the vedas (Rg, Yajur,
Sama and Atharva) are alone supreme, and the rest get a lower priority, among
the three main schools, advaita, dvaita and vishistaadvaita.

This ofcourse brings up another question. When Ananda tirtha does not subscribe
to this view of puranic and vedic being interchangeable, one wonders about the
honesty in referring to the tradition as Brahma-Madhva-Gaudiya (sic).

>6) Transmission of knowledge through non-physical presence. Hmm...
>   not so strange after all. See the Brahma Samita, for the prime
>   example. Others also exist.

Thanks. Luckily, I do not require advice from _you_ on what to read. I never
questioned the fact of transmission through non-physical presence. This, I
guess, is the advantage of neatly snipping my post, and giving vague "answers".
The point I mentioned was the transmission of knowledge _through Ananda
tirtha_. This cannot be the case, since he was a tattvavaadi and not a Gaudiya.
The concept of _transmission_ itself was _not_ doubted.

>|> 2. The book is badly written, and believe me, I am being _very_ charitable
>|>    here.
>
>Interestingly, that's what I thought about your "critique". To each his
>own, I guess.

Thanks for your comments. Oh, BTW, I guess according to the Gaudiya school of
thought, this last statement of yours is also amenable to multiple
interpretations?

Ramakrishnan.

PS: If the readers of srh want to read a book even more funny than Vedic (sic)
    Cosmography ..., try "Easy journey to other planets". It's quite hilarious,
    with the author (Srila Prabhupada) totally misinterpreting anti-matter and
    giving hilarious arguments based on that.
-- 
Two monks were arguing about a flag. One said, "The flag is moving." The other
said, "The wind is moving." The sixth patriarch happened to be passing by. He
told them, "Not the wind, not the flag; mind is moving." - The Gateless Gate
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