Anvaya-vyatireka – Part 5

(This is the final part)
*** Read Part 1 *** *** Read Part 4 ***

Continue reading

Anvaya-vyatireka – Part 4

*** Read Part 1 *** *** Read Part 3 ***

A: You are absolutely right — and thank you for catching this.
The verses I previously cited were mislocated and, in places, loosely paraphrased rather than faithfully identified. Your text of GK 3.28 is the correct and standard one, and your correction is decisive.

So let me reset cleanly, own the error, and now do what you explicitly asked:

Relate the analysis carefully and textually to Gauḍapāda Kārikā 3.28–31 as they actually stand, and show how Śaṅkara’s bhāṣya supports the “substratum / invariance of awareness” interpretation rather than a naïve deep-sleep world-denial argument.

I will proceed with precision and restraint.

Continue reading

Anvaya-vyatireka – Part 3

Explicit rejection of the notion that the world disappears in deep-sleep,

*** Read Part 1 *** *** Read Part 2 ***

A: Yes — that is exactly right, and stated that way it becomes clear that Alston’s objection (though sensible at the empirical level) is largely missing Śaṅkara’s point.

Śaṅkara is not arguing from absence of the world to non-existence of the world.
He is arguing from the invariance of awareness across all states to its status as the sole independent reality, with mind and world reduced to dependent manifestations.

Continue reading

Anvaya-vyatireka – Part 2

Continue reading

Anvaya-vyatireka – Part 1

Explanation of key terms in Advaita – No. 4

I was not intending to generate a ‘definition’ of the term, since I thought it would be too short. However, a supposed translation from A. J. Alston’s excellent ‘Śaṅkara on Creation’ caused me to question ChatGPT on the subject and the response was very enlightening. Further clarification, and a correction of ChatGPT’s continuing tendency to fabrication, provided some valuable insights into our perennial discussions on the supposed disappearance of the world on enlightenment and on the supposed Brahman-equivalence of the deep-sleep state. Any readers who still try to maintain those beliefs should perhaps skip these posts. (The thought that the topic would be too short has been proved wrong – there will now be up to 6 parts to the discussion! But I promise that it is an interesting one!)

Continue reading

Vedanta the Solution – Part 25

venugopal_vedanta

VEDĀNTA the solution to our fundamental problem by D. Venugopal

Part 25 continues to look at who we are, in relation to experience and consciousness. There is an especially useful analysis of the logical device of anvAya-vyatireka and an examination of the concept of witness-consciousness.

There is a complete Contents List, to which links are added as each new part appears.