Śaṅkara grounds unreality in neither horn as you've posed them.
Objects are not unreal because they are momentary — Śaṅkara is the tradition's most relentless opponent of kṣaṇikatva — nor does the false ascription of permanence constitute their unreality. The mark of the unreal in the prasthānatraya-bhāṣya is bādhyatva, and more precisely vyabhicāra: deviation from the form in which a thing was ascertained (Taittirīya-bhāṣya 2.1: yad-rūpeṇa yan niścitaṃ tad-rūpaṃ na vyabhicarati tat satyam … vyabhicarati tad anṛtam). The real is the non-deviating; the object is nāma-rūpa-vikāra superimposed on sat (Chāndogya-bhāṣya 6.1.4: the vikāra is vācārambhaṇa, mere speech-handle — mṛttikety eva satyam). Unreality is anātmatva / adhyastatva, not brevity.
So where does transience sit? As a liṅga, not the definiens. In the Gītā-bhāṣya Śaṅkara does run the come-and-go argument — the dvandvas are āgamāpāyino 'nityāḥ (2.14), and nāsato vidyate bhāvaḥ (2.16) is unpacked through the constancy of the "asti, asti" cognition that abides while the objects it illumines lapse. But note what does the work: not that objects flicker, but that sattā is the one term that never deviates while forms deviate through it. Transience is symptomatic of vikāratva, and vikāratva — becoming-other — is the disqualification. This is emphatically not the Sautrāntika point-instant, which Śaṅkara dismantles at BSB 2.2.28–31 precisely because pratyabhijñā refutes it: a momentary object cannot even be known to be momentary.
Now the more interesting half, and where I'd resist the Vicāra Sāgara framing. The perceived permanence is not the falsity's locus; it is the satya-aṃśa mislocated. What lends an object its felt "is-ness" and continuity is the borrowed sattā of Brahman — adhyāsa being atasmiṃs tad-buddhiḥ, the mutual transfer of ātmānātma-dharmas. The permanence you detect in the dream-mountain is the nityatva of the draṣṭṛ — the very avināśitva of BU 4.3.23 you were just reading — misattributed to the dṛśya. The error is not that permanence is perceived but that it is mislocated: read onto the perishable name-form instead of recognized as the abiding sat. Strip the mislocation and you do not arrive at flux; you arrive at kūṭastha being.
That is the caveat against Niścaladāsa's move, congenial as it is. Making the object tat-kṣaṇotpanna and cirantanatva a separate anirvacanīya superimposition (note the doubled anirvacanīyatayotpādyate) foregrounds cirantanatva-adhyāsa as the salient falsity and leans on a dream-waking momentariness-parity harder than Śaṅkara's own hand allows. Śaṅkara guards the asymmetry: vaidharmyāc ca na svapnādivat (BSB 2.2.29) — waking is not dream, because the dream is sublated within vyavahāra by waking, whereas waking yields only to jñāna. And Ramana's river-and-flame, taken at the letter, makes flux the fact and stability the error — which quietly inverts the mukhya siddhānta, where nitya-sat is the truth and the deviating forms are the unreal. As upāya it is unimpeachable; as ontology it drifts toward the very kṣaṇikavāda Śaṅkara spent BSB 2.2 refuting. The felt permanence is not an error to be dissolved into flux; it is Brahman's own avināśitva awaiting relocation.
Sharpest form: for Śaṅkara, objects are mithyā as bādhya nāma-rūpa upon sat. Transitoriness is a symptom of that (Gītā-bhāṣya register), and perceived permanence is a misplaced trace of the real, not the ground of unreality. The VS/Ramana emphasis — permanence-as-the-locus-of-falsity — is a later, DSV-anirvacanīya recentring: not false to Śaṅkara, but not his ordering, and it carries the standing risk of terminating in flux rather than in the kūṭastha the draṣṭṛ-vākyas were framed to secure.
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praNAms
Hare Krishna
Accepting the Ishwara srushti in Advaita vedAnta as per bhagavatpAda is ‘vedAnta maryAda’, I repeat it_is_vedAnta maryAda. Yes the similarity between waking and dreaming states reiterated at various places in PTB but it does not anyway mean that Ishwara srushti is just like snake on the rope, it only (the similarity between jAgrat and Svapna) conveys the fact that our svarUpa is avasthAteeta and it pervades all avasthA-s in ekarUpa. The similarity between waking and dream states does not deny the creation of Ishvara (the Creator) at any stretch of our imagination in bhagavatpAda’s theistic Advaita vedanta. That is the reason why bhagavatpAda states what we see in the waking world is a projection of Ishvara’s mind (brahma mAnasa pratyaya), where as Svapna is an individual mind’s projection (jeeva maanasa pratyaya). One is vyAvahArika another is prAtibhAsika. Shankara states elsewhere that there is not even an iota of pAramArthika in individual’s dream world whereas for this vyAvahArika jagat brahman is the ONLY abhinna nimittOpadAna kAraNa. Shankara asks us : do I have to tell you again & again that Ishwara who is nitya Shuddha
possesses nitya jnAna about the srushti-sthiti & laya??
bhAshyakAra, in sUtra bhAshya, also particularly emphasizes that the tiny jeeva who is not srushtikarta Ishwara is not at all capable of creating the many and varied names and forms of
mountains, rivers, oceans and the like. For that matter even the siddha-s who have acquired the siddhis (supernatural powers) like aNimAdi ashta siddhi-s etc., cannot effect the manifestation of the creation and manage its affairs!! Creation if at all there is any talk about creation is an exclusive power of Ishwara.
To KISS : Comparing jAgrat prapancha to a Svapna prapancha doesn't say Ishwara’s creation is fake like rope on the snake (vide chAndOgya), but rather points out that it isn't absolutely real and nirvikAri brahman. But at the same time vyAkruta prapancha which was/is/will always be one with brahman in avyAkruta rUpa is NOT different from brahman. Though waking world changing each and every minute it is in it’s svarUpa brahman only and nothing but brahman.
Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
bhaskar
praNAms
Hare Krishna
Accepting the Ishwara srushti in Advaita vedAnta as per bhagavatpAda is ‘vedAnta maryAda’, I repeat it_is_vedAnta maryAda. Yes the similarity between waking and dreaming states reiterated at various places in PTB but it does not anyway mean that Ishwara srushti is just like snake on the rope, it only (the similarity between jAgrat and Svapna) conveys the fact that our svarUpa is avasthAteeta and it pervades all avasthA-s in ekarUpa. The similarity between waking and dream states does not deny the creation of Ishvara (the Creator) at any stretch of our imagination in bhagavatpAda’s theistic Advaita vedanta. That is the reason why bhagavatpAda states what we see in the waking world is a projection of Ishvara’s mind (brahma mAnasa pratyaya), where as Svapna is an individual mind’s projection (jeeva maanasa pratyaya). One is vyAvahArika another is prAtibhAsika. Shankara states elsewhere that there is not even an iota of pAramArthika in individual’s dream world whereas for this vyAvahArika jagat brahman is the ONLY abhinna nimittOpadAna kAraNa. Shankara asks us : do I have to tell you again & again that Ishwara who is nitya Shuddha
possesses nitya jnAna about the srushti-sthiti & laya??
(On the unreality of the dream-creation)
"But this creation that has the dream-state (sandhyā) as its locus is not, in the ultimate (pāramārthika) sense, a real creation like the creation beginning with space (ākāśa)." This alone is what is intended to be established here.
Nor, indeed, does even the creation beginning with space possess absolute reality. For it has already been established in the aphorism 'tad-ananyatvam ārambhaṇa-śabdādibhyaḥ' (Brahma Sūtra 2.1.14) that the entire phenomenal universe is nothing but māyā.
However, prior to the realization that Brahman is the Self, the empirical universe beginning with space appears as a well-established and orderly reality. The dream-world, on the other hand, is sublated every single day upon waking. Therefore, it is only in this special sense that the dream has been declared to be merely an appearance produced by māyā.
And Shankara says in the BGB 2.16:
(Verse 16 Commentary)
The intention is this: You too, Arjuna, adopting the standpoint of the knowers of Truth (tattva-darśins), should abandon grief and delusion. Recognizing firmly in your mind that the pairs of opposites—such as heat and cold—which are of fixed or occasional occurrence, are merely modifications, that do not really exist, but falsely appear like the water seen in a mirage (marīci-jala), should cultivate forbearance (titikṣā).
So, Shankara calls the Ishwara-created world māyāmātram. And says, 'It does not really exist but appears to exist.'
These are just two examples of many where Shankara holds the Ishwara-created world to be a mere appearance like a dream or a rope-snake.
warm regards
subbu
bhAshyakAra, in sUtra bhAshya, also particularly emphasizes that the tiny jeeva who is not srushtikarta Ishwara is not at all capable of creating the many and varied names and forms of
mountains, rivers, oceans and the like. For that matter even the siddha-s who have acquired the siddhis (supernatural powers) like aNimAdi ashta siddhi-s etc., cannot effect the manifestation of the creation and manage its affairs!! Creation if at all there is any talk about creation is an exclusive power of Ishwara.
To KISS : Comparing jAgrat prapancha to a Svapna prapancha doesn't say Ishwara’s creation is fake like rope on the snake (vide chAndOgya), but rather points out that it isn't absolutely real and nirvikAri brahman. But at the same time vyAkruta prapancha which was/is/will always be one with brahman in avyAkruta rUpa is NOT different from brahman. Though waking world changing each and every minute it is in it’s svarUpa brahman only and nothing but brahman.
Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
bhaskar
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praNAms Sri Subbu prabhuji
Hare Krishna
What you say about Ishwara's unique power is not denied and Shankara's great regard for that power.
However, Shankara does not differentiate the Ishwara-created world from the jiva-created dream:
Ø I have already said creation by Ishwara and accepting the Ishwara hetukatva is vedAnta maryAda. Yes as far as the ‘creation’ as a common word is concerned there is no difference between Ishwara’s and that of jeeva’s. But Ishwara’s creation is at macro level (samashti) it is meant for the jeeva-s. And for this creation Ishwara himself is the abhinna nimittOpadAna kAraNa. It is governed, managed and maintained by omniscient and omnipotent Ishwara himself for the sake of jeeva-s and this is the stage on which Jeevas will perform actions and experience the results of their respective karma.
Nor, indeed, does even the creation beginning with space possess absolute reality.
For it has already been established in the aphorism 'tad-ananyatvam ārambhaṇa-śabdādibhyaḥ' (Brahma Sūtra 2.1.14) that the entire phenomenal universe is nothing but māyā.
However, prior to the realization that Brahman is the Self, the empirical universe beginning with space appears as a well-established and orderly reality. The dream-world, on the other hand, is sublated every single day upon waking. Therefore, it is only in this special sense that the dream has been declared to be merely an appearance produced by māyā.
And Shankara says in the BGB 2.16:
(Verse 16 Commentary)
The intention is this: You too, Arjuna, adopting the standpoint of the knowers of Truth (tattva-darśins), should abandon grief and delusion.
Ø Can be noted here it is all about Arjuna’s rAga-dvesha-bhrAnti etc. It is merely problem of ours seeing the snake (jeeva srushti) in place of rope (Ishwara srushti) and deluded. For jeeva’s avidyA srushti (seeing the snake, resultant suffering like fear etc.) is due to mAya srushti, the rope which is having its svarUpa as brahman. Tattva drushti is sama drushti…vidyAvinaya sampanne brAhmaNe gavihastini etc. seeing the brahman in everything is sama drushti / Samyak jnAna seeing the srushti independently from brahman is avidyA drushti or mithyA drushti.
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praNAms
Hare Krishna
Frankly I don’t have enough time to correct your each and every mis-representation of Sri SSS’s stand. It is once again quite evident that you are just picking here and there Sri SSS quotes randomly (like you did in avidyA Ashraya in kUtastha brahma!!) just to float your pet theories.
Here, SSSS ji is accepting that the distinction of waking and dream is stated in shāstra for manda-buddhi people for their evolution.
He also observes that the ultimate reality is non-dual, the views on the everyday physical world are fundamentally carrying some purpose and cannot be denied like Buddhists due to this bhagavatpAda criticizes buddhists’ shruti bAhira nAstikavAda or subjective idealism, which claims that the external world is merely an illusion projected by the mind. And this view point of buddhist is what exactly you are trying to put in the mouth of Shankara, gaudapAda and Sri SSS. See what he says in that same work :
//quote// Atmaikatva or the unity of Atman (or brahman) is the ONLY absolute truth according to the shruti-s as shown by bAdarAyana interpreted by Shankara, even while the distinction of sentient and non-sentient nature remains quite real from the empirical standpoint. The universe as an effect is non-different from the cause or brahman and is essentially ONE WITH brahman.//unquote//
So, for followers of SSSS ji, this should be a point of consideration to revisit their penchant with Īśvara-sṛṣṭi etc.
So, basically, it is an advanced knowledge. Both DSV and SDV are teachings to the very same jīva. In one, he is given the concession and his belief in the distinction of waking and dream is allowed. In DSV, his this belief is shattered and he remains alone - in his own glory
- and as Buddha said -- walks alone like a rhino. एको चरे खग्गविसाणकप्पो।
Yes, Sri SSS quite emphatically argues that there is absolutely no difference between waking and dream world in his works like paramArtha chintaamani, avasthAtraya Viveka, avasthAtraya Chandrika, gaudapAda hrudaya etc. But mind you it is not at all at the cost of Ishwara srushti or to propagate the buddhist vijnAnavAda or kshaNika vAda. No, for your information neither bhagavatpAda nor gaudapAda nor Sri SSS deny the existence of external objects in the same way you are projecting them like they are prachanna Buddhists of vijnanavadins who say it is all mind game!!
Not responding to rest of the points for want of merit.
praNAms
Hare Krishna
Yes I should have exercised this caution too when trying to address your claims on Sri SSS…thanks for your timely advice…that would save my time in addressing your verdicts on Sri SSS’s works.