On the Teaching of SSSS

SSSS, of course, refers to the famous, if contentious, Advaitin Sri Satchidanandendra Saraswati Swamiji (1880 – 1975).

In 2014, I wrote a review of the article “A New Approach to Understanding Advaita as Taught by Sankara Bhagavadpada” by Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian – https://www.advaita-vision.org/review-of-article-by-ramakrisnan-subramanian/. The article was very critical of SSSS and my review provided a defense. 

SSSS’s book “Salient Features of Ṥaṅkara’s Vedānta’ has an introduction by Prof. S.K. Ramachandra Rao and the latter makes the following points:

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Revision of ‘Review of article on Shankara’ – Part 5

A tarka (reasoning, argumentation) is required for the analysis of anubhava, as both SSS and RB (the author) agree – consistent with Shankara’s position. That is, language and thought, needless to say, have a role to play, chiefly for exposition and analysis.

However, after two long, dense paragraphs RB contends: “If the tarka required to examine anubhava is itself completely dependent on ´sruti, then by no means is anubhava the ‘kingpin’ of pram¯an.as.”

Prior to this, SSS was quoted as maintaining that “for this unique tarka all universal anubhavas or experiences (intuitive experiences) themselves are the support.” The author states that this affirmation involves circular argumentation, and that to say that Shankara interprets the Vedas as being consistent with anubhava is wrong, the truth being the other way around, anubhava is consistent with the Vedas: “it should be clear that according to Sure´svar¯ac¯arya, the direct realization is directly from just ´sruti itself, thus satisfying the criteria for it to be a pram¯an.a…. The direct realization of the self is from ´sruti alone.” Continue reading

Revision of ‘Review of article on Shankara’ – part 4

Under the section ‘Tarka vs Sruti’ the more or less unconscious devise (upadhi) of removing the subject from the ‘picture’ aimed at understanding the world is broached, and the author (RB) quotes E. Schrödinger in that connection: “It became inherent in any attempt to form a picture of the objective world such as the Ionians made”. And so, “…the desire for understanding the world through our imperfect sensory knowledge invariably leads to certain, frequently overlooked, assumptions”.

It is curious that the first sleight of hand – by ‘primordial man’, the demiurge of mythology and Platonic philosophy – consisted in carrying out a scission within reality so that subject and object would emerge in opposition to each other: God and man (the Garden of Eden), the One and the many. A second scission was done by philosophical, or ‘thinking’, man, by removing the human subject altogether – provisionally, for the Ionian ‘physiologoi’ knew what they were doing, though, it is related, Thales of Miletus fell once into a ditch while absorbed looking at the firmament’s stars in utter wonder. Certainly, this device – or both combined – made possible all the empirical sciences, literature, art, and everything we know about the world. If there were no division or separation (no adhyasa and it’s attending ‘names and forms’), there would be no ‘world’. Allusion was made to this parallel mythological account previously, as well as to the kind of ignorance that became knowledge (with small case). Continue reading