“anRtatvam” according to BhAShyakAra does NOT imply a 3rd 'ontological' existence (prAtibhAsikatvam)

[Michael Chandra Cohen]

A quick follow-up from Hishi Ryoji to one of your/our discussions: 

 

[V Subrahmanian]

Dear Michael ji,

I had said that SSS had not refuted either the Taitttiriya Upanishad or Shankara's Bhashya on that particular passage where the Satyam Brahma is stated to have 'become' the satya (vyavahara) and anRta (the mirage water example given by Shankara).  I had cited SSS's Kannada translation too and had not seen any footnote where he gives his personal views normally, for that Bhashya-translation.  If SSS had disagreement with the Upanishad statement and Shankara's bhashya (where a particular distinction is made between vyavaharic water and the mirage water, to bring out the Upanishadic distinction between the 'satyam' and 'anRtam'), and by extension, with Sureshwaracharya, who labels two satyas: Paramarthika and Vyavaharika,  this would have been the best place.   

But the pdf you attach says at the beginning that SSS did refute: Reply: //That’s incorrect. He (SSS ji) certainly did refute, for example in his Magnum Opus VedAntaprakriyApratyabhijnA://

But those paragraphs do not refute the Upanishadic statement of 'three' things: the Paramarthika Satya Brahman and the Vyavaharika satyam world and a sub-category within that vyavaharika: the anRta.   

Nor does the footnote with V.Panoli's words:  

//Cf. TaiUP 2.6 BhAShya:

iha punaḥ vyavahāraviṣayamāpekṣikaṃ satyam , mṛgatṛṣṇikādyanṛtāpekṣayā udakādi
satyamucyate . anṛtaṃ ca tadviparītam | 
But here is discussed the relative truth belonging to the plane of ordinary experience. To
cite for instance, water is said to be real when compared to the water in a mirage which
is unreal. Anritam: untrue, the opposite of satyam. (V. Panoli)//

say anything about the Taittiriya Upanishad and the bhashya distinction between the 'satyam' (vyavaharika) and the 'anRtam' (the mirage water, distinguished by Shankara from the real water).  Here too SSS does not refute the Tai.Up. and the Bhashya. 

If he is in disagreement with this statement of the Tai.Up. and Shankara's explicit distinguishing between the 'satyam' and anRtam, he must have said it most ideally here or somewhere. A general treatment by SSS of the term anRtam does not address this specific instance of the Tai.Up. and Bhashya as the anRtam term here is completely different from the general anRtam which could convey the total unreality of the entire non-Brahman.   

warm regards

subbu  

[Michael Chandra Cohen]

Namaste Subbuji,

I appreciate your observations but the pdf comes from Hishi Ryoji/Thomas Ferber. Regardless of SSS's comments on these particular vakyas and bhasya, there should be no question that SSS rejects pratibhasika as an separate satta position held by Adi Sankara. Yesterday and now again, I share a paper by Dr. Manjushree Hegde thoroughly discussing Vyavahara/Paramartha as presented by SSS.  She argues convincingly, "In accordance with the method of adhyāropāpavāda, Śaṅkarācārya’s direct assertions of the unreality of dreams are not ontological claims; they are aimed at refuting the perceived reality of the waking experience." The same should hold for your citations as well. I implore you and any concerned reader to make note of Dr Hegde's paper. We cannot extract isolated vakyas and hope to determine Sankara's overall theology. Instead, we need to favor an interpretation that is the most consistent and systematic study of the entire prasthanatraya bhasya.   🙏🙏🙏

https://drive.google.com/file/d/179YcpOFTuMImrG0JTNuuTmsVU1EqWFlK/view?usp=sharing