108 upanishads (was Re: Brahma Madhva Gaudiya Caitanya)
Vidyasankar Sundaresan
>
> The problems are the following. I don't know if the list of 108 is
> considered canonical or not (i.e., if the MuktikA is itself
> universally accepted, or not). I also do not know if the Krishna
> Upanishad is extant or not (subject to previous condition). I cannot
> accept its authoritativeness if I cannot look it up (or ask someone to
> look it up). If you have a reference for that text, do let me
> know. Otherwise, I could simply invent a quote and attribute it to
> some Upanishad named in that list which is not extant.
I don't know that anyone has specifically questioned the authenticity of
the muktikA upanishad itself. All the 108 upanishads listed in the
muktikA as containing the gist of all vedAnta are extant, and there are
also commentaries on them. Less than 250 years ago, Upanishad Brahmendra
(rAmacandrendra saraswatI) wrote advaita commentaries to each one of
these upanishads, so as far as advaita vedAnta is concerned, there is
absolutely no doubt about any of the 108 upanishads listed. The kr.shNa
upanishad, which is in the muktikA list, has been definitely available
for a long while now, and it should not be too difficult to check if
somebody is simply inventing a quote and attributing it to the kr.shNa
or any other upanishad in the muktikA list. Of course, one may doubt
whether the muktikA is apaurusheya, because it lists other upanishads,
but it should be remembered that such self-referentiality is not at all
uncommon in the corpus of Vedic texts.
>
> By canonical source, I'd mean some reference from the dozen or so
> Upanishads that have a wide circulation and have been commented upon
> by several scholars (and which seem to figure at the top of the list
> of 108 as posted by Vijay).
>
> However, I have my doubts about that list -- not because I believe
> Vijay would not be accurate, but because it lists "Atma-bodha" as an
> Upanishad; I happen to know that there is a work by Shankara having
> the same name. Now, is someone confusing his work with an Upanishad?
> Or did he name a work after an Upanishad? I'm personally inclined to
> think that no one would author a work and name it the same as an
> Upanishad. Thus, the canonicity of the list _as given_ is open to
> doubt.
The Atmabodha upanishad of the r.g veda is different from the prakaraNa
grantha called "Atmabodha" that is attributed to SankarAcArya. Both
texts have been published and are in circulation. The list as given is
open to doubt only if a specific text in that list is asserted to be a
composition of a human being, not otherwise. And this assertion has to
be made on more than a mere examination of its name.
Authors giving to their own works names of upanishads, can lead to
confusion, but so long as the audience to whom these works are addressed
know of the difference, things should be fine. Quite a few times, names
are given to works by disciples or later commentators. We just have to
live with the situation, and take care to identify the text we quote
unambiguously. This is not very different from the works of different
authors having the same name, e.g. the many "nyAyasudhA"s available
today. The upanishads themselves are named on an ad hoc basis, sometimes
identifying the AraNyaka in which they occur e.g. br.hadAraNyaka, or by
the name of the prominent student to whom the upanishad is addressed
e.g. paingala, or by the subject matter of the upanishad e.g. yogaSikhA.
Here is the list of 108 upanishads organized according to a popular
classification scheme, and sorted according to veda affiliation in each
category. I have cross checked this list with the earlier list that
Vijay Pai posted and a list posted by Dr. V. Sadagopan on the prapatti
mailing list. For the transliteration scheme adopted here, see
http://www.cco.caltech.edu/~vidya/advaita/transliteration.html.
Principal (mukhya) upanishads -(10)-
1. aitareya (r.g)
2. ISAvAsya (Sukla yajus)
3. br.hadAraNyaka (Sukla yajus)
4. kaTha (kr.shNa yajus)
5. taittirIya (kr.shNa yajus)
6. kena (sAma)
7. chAndogya (sAma)
8. praSna (atharva)
9. muNDaka (atharva)
10. mANDUkya (atharva)
sAmAnya vedAnta upanishads -(24)-
11. kauSItakI (r.g)
12. Atmabodha (r.g)
13. mudgala (r.g)
14. subAla (Sukla yajus)
15. mAntrika (Sukla yajus)
16. nirAlamba (Sukla yajus)
17. paingala (Sukla yajus)
18. adhyAtma (Sukla yajus)
19. muktikA (Sukla yajus)
20. SvetASvatara (kr.shNa yajus)
21. garbha (kr.shNa yajus)
22. sarvasAra (kr.shNa yajus)
23. Sukarahasya (kr.shNa yajus)
24. skanda (kr.shNa yajus)
25. SArIraka (kr.shNa yajus)
26. ekAkshara (kr.shNa yajus)
27. akshi (kr.shNa yajus)
28. prANAgnihotra (kr.shNa yajus)
29. maitrAyaNI (sAma)
30. vajrasUcI (sAma)
31. mahat (sAma)
32. sAvitrI (sAma)
33. sUrya (atharva)
34. AtmA (atharva)
sam.nyAsa upanishads -(16)-
35. nirvANa (r.g)
36. jAbAla (Sukla yajus)
37. paramaham.sa (Sukla yajus)
38. bhikshuka (Sukla yajus)
39. turIyAtIta (Sukla yajus)
40. yAjnavalkya (Sukla yajus)
41. sAtyAyanI (Sukla yajus)
42. brahma (kr.shna yajus)
43. avAdhUta (kr.shna yajus)
44. kaTharudra (kr.shna yajus)
45. AruNika (sAma)
46. maitreyI (sAma)
47. sam.nyAsa (sAma)
48. kuNDika (sAma)
49. nArada parivrAjaka (atharva)
50. paramaham.sa parivrAjaka (atharva)
51. parabrahma (atharva)
yoga upanishads -(20)-
52. nAdabindu (r.g)
53. ham.sa (Sukla yajus)
54. triSikhi-brAhmaNa (Sukla yajus)
55. maNDala-brAhmaNa (Sukla yajus)
56. advayatAraka (Sukla yajus)
57. varAha (kr.shNa yajus)
58. amr.tabindu (kr.shNa yajus)
59. (amr.ta)nAdabindu (kr.shNa yajus)
60. tejobindu (kr.shNa yajus)
61. dhyAnabindu (kr.shNa yajus)
62. kshurika (kr.shNa yajus)
63. brahmavidyA (kr.shNa yajus)
64. yogatattva (kr.shNa yajus)
65. yogaSikhA (kr.shNa yajus)
66. yogakuNDalinI (kr.shNa yajus)
67. yogacUDAmaNi (sAma)
68. jAbAladarSana (sAma)
69. pASupatabrahma (atharva)
70. SANDilya (atharva)
71. mahAvAkya (atharva)
vaishNava upanishads -(14)-
72. tArasAra (Sukla yajus)
73. nArAyaNa (kr.shNa yajus)
74. kaliSAntaraNa (kr.shNa yajus)
75. vAsudeva (sAma)
76. avyakta (sAma)
77. nr.simhatApanI (atharva)
78. (TripadavibhUti)mahAnArAyaNa (atharva)
79. rAmarahasya (atharva)
80. rAmatApanI (atharva)
81. gopAlatApanI (atharva)
82. kr.shNa (atharva)
83. hayagrIva (atharva)
84. dattAtreya (atharva)
85. gAruDa (atharva)
Saiva upanishads -(14)-
86. akshamAlA (r.g)
87. kaivalya (kr.shNa yajus)
88. kAlAgnirudra (kr.shNa yajus)
89. dakshiNAmUrti (kr.shNa yajus)
90. rudrahr.daya (kr.shNa yajus)
91. pancabrahma (kr.shNa yajus)
92. rudrAkshajAbAla (sAma)
93. jAbAlI (sAma)
94. atharvaSira (atharva)
95. atharvaSikhA (atharva)
96. br.hajjAbAla (atharva)
97. Sarabha (atharva)
98. bhasmajAbAla (atharva)
99. gaNapati (atharva)
SAkta upanishads -(9)-
100. tripurA (r.g)
101. saubhAgyalakshmI (r.g)
102. bahvr.cA (r.g)
103. sarasvatIrahasya (kr.shNa yajus)
104. annapUrNA (atharva)
105. sItA (atharva)
106. tripurAtApanI (atharva)
107. devI (atharva)
108. bhAvanA (atharva)
Some comments on this list -
The classification seems very reasonable, although some upanishads could
possibly be classified under more than one heading. For example, it is
unclear why varAha upanishad (#57 in the list) is called a yoga
upanishad and not a vaishNava upanishad. Similarly, gaNapati upanishad
(#99) is included as a Saiva upanishad, while skanda upanishad (#24) is
not. Also, ham.sa upanishad (#53) is called a yoga upanishad and not a
sam.nyAna upanishad, whereas paramaham.sa is included as a sam.nyAsa
upanishad.
In any case, there seems to be a large overlap in subject matter between
the "yoga" upanishads and the "sam.nyAsa" upanishads, pointing to the
close relationship between yoga practice and sam.nyAsa as an
institution. This also raises the possibility that the traditional
association of yoga with sAm.khya in terms of the six darSanas may be
somewhat misleading. It is interesting to note in this connection that
most of the bhAshyas on the yogasUtras of patanjali are by followers of
(advaita) vedAnta, although all these commentators explain yoga in
sAm.khyan terms. Yet another possibility is that sAm.khya, especially
the school which admits of ISvara as a separate principle, may actually
be close to vedAnta itself, and that the boundaries between any two
darSanas can be fuzzy.
The upanishads in the sAmAnya vedAnta list seem to form a heterogenous
list. But it is interesting to note that the upanishads that Sankara
quotes (other than the principal ones of course) in his brahma-sUtra
bhAshya fall almost entirely within this list, with a few quotations
from the sam.nyAsa upanishads. The garbha upanishad (#21) is quoted by
rAmAnuja, which also falls within this list.
The bulk of the vaishNava (9 out of 14), Saiva (6 out of 14) and the
SAkta (5 out of 9) upanishads are assigned to the atharva veda. What is
interesting is that three SAkta upanishads are from the r.g veda, while
there are no vaishNava upanishads and only one Saiva upanishad assigned
to the r.g veda. Also, there are no Saiva or SAkta upanishads assigned
to the Sukla yajurveda and the sAma veda, but a substantial number of
Saiva (5 out of 14) upanishads assigned to the kr.shNa yajus. There is
one vaishNava upanishad in the Sukla yajus. The SAkta upanishads are
grouped together although there is one concentrating on saraswatI, two
on lakshmI, two on pArvatI, the rest dealing mainly with SrIcakra
upAsanA, where Sakti is identified with brahman Itself, rather than as
the Sakti of brahmA, vishNu or Siva. Since the upanishads are associated
with individual SAkhAs within each veda, it might be interesting to
investigate the distribution of these upanishads further, and correlate
them with the distribution of the vaidIka SAkhAs among today's groups of
vaishNavas, Saivas and SAktas.
In the context of the recent discussions about the meaning of
pApayoNaya: in the gItA, I would draw particular attention to the
vajrasUcI (#30) upanishad. This upanishad succinctly argues that birth
cannot and must not determine who is a brAhmaNa and who is not. Nor can
samskAra by itself determine so. In reality, only the brahmavit has any
right to be called a brAhmaNa. In the course of this argument, the
upanishad explicitly states that no real distinction in quality can be
made out between the jIvas of any two separate beings. So much for
eternal jIva-tAratamya and its basis in vedAnta. This upanishad has been
translated in S. Radhakrishnan's volume "The principal upanishads", so
you can verify that I am not making this up. You are also free not to
follow Radhakrishnan's translation; the text of the upanishad is simple
enough to be understandable to anyone with a moderate knowledge of
sam.skr.tam. Simply stating a doubt about the authenticity of the
upanishad will not do as a counter-argument in this case. Strictly
orthodox brAhmaNas of old have classified it as a sAma veda upanishad.
However, I can't deny that some clever dvaitin commentator may be able
to find alternative meanings for each word in the upanishad so that it
tells an entirely different story.
Comments on Vijay Pai's remarks of 15 Dec 1995 on the muktikA list:
> I was surprised that it didn't include mahaa or parama
Yes, mahA and parama are not included in the muktikA list. However, I
don't think the authenticity or the "canonicity" of the list can be
questioned on this basis alone. The kaliSAntaraNa is listed however. One
up for the gauDiyas vs. the mAdhvas? :-)
> naada-bindu * Hey, this one was repeated, maybe it's different
Yes, it is different. The nAdabindu (#52) is from the r.g veda, while
the amr.tanAdabindu (#59) is from the kr.shNa yajus. Sometimes the
amr.ta is dropped from the name if the identification is made in the
context of the veda from which the upanishad is taken.
> mahadupaniShad <mahat or mahad?>
It is mahat, which become mahadupanishad in sandhi. In most cases, "t"
becomes "d" in combinations e.g. jaga_t_ + guru = jaga_d_guru.
S. Vidyasankar
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Vijay Sadananda Pai
Vidyasankar Sundaresan <vi...@cco.caltech.edu> wrote:
>82. kr.shNa (atharva)
The Archana-paddhati book I've seen lists this one as being
from the Rg.
>Comments on Vijay Pai's remarks of 15 Dec 1995 on the muktikA list:
>> I was surprised that it didn't include mahaa or parama
>Yes, mahA and parama are not included in the muktikA list. However, I
>don't think the authenticity or the "canonicity" of the list can be
>questioned on this basis alone. The kaliSAntaraNa is listed however. One
>up for the gauDiyas vs. the mAdhvas? :-)
Well, I don't know that the Gaudiyas are trying for one-upmanship on the
Maadhvas, but even if they were, I don't think the claim would hold
water, since the Gaudiyas also use the mahaa (see Srila Prabhupada's
BGAII, Commentary on 10.8). Also, the list that Srila Prabhupada gave
as the Muktika list didn't include KalisantaraNa. Different sakhas
of Muktika?
Also, maybe I missed it, but I didn't see mahaa-naaraayaNa on the
list you gave. I can't remember, though, where I've seen this one cited.
I don't think Prabhupada ever cites this one (he does cite naaraayaNa,
though, and I've have a tape of the Mayapur gurukul boys reciting this
one, along with others)
Also, I lost the comment somewhere, but
>> naada-bindu * Hey, this one was repeated, maybe it's different
>Yes, it is different. The nAdabindu (#52) is from the r.g veda, while
>the amr.tanAdabindu (#59) is from the kr.shNa yajus. Sometimes the
>amr.ta is dropped from the name if the identification is made in the
>context of the veda from which the upanishad is taken.
well, that explains it....
>S. Vidyasankar
-- Vijay
Manish Tandon
> I don't know that anyone has specifically questioned the authenticity of
> the muktikA upanishad itself. All the 108 upanishads listed in the
> muktikA as containing the gist of all vedAnta are extant, and there are
> also commentaries on them. Less than 250 years ago, Upanishad Brahmendra
> (rAmacandrendra saraswatI) wrote advaita commentaries to each one of
> these upanishads,
The above claim is flawed because to begin with the list of 108 Upanisads
in Muktika Upanisad and the 108 Upanisads commented by Upanishad Brahmendra
are *not* the same! So which ones of the 108 are we supposed to accept?
Should it be the common denominator of the two lists? Or are there two
versions of Muktika itself which gives two different lists of 108 Upanisads?
Again the question would be which Muktika should we accept.
Upanishad Brahmendra commented upon the texts that were available at his
time, but there is no guarantee that the texts of all of these Upanisads
(regardless of the list of 108 itself) is really what it was or should be.
Did advaitans maintain the 108 Upanisads prior to Upanishad Brahmendra's
commenting upon them? Moreover his effort can also be viewed as one aming
for social harmony (for example he commented upon both Kalisantaran and
Ganapati Upanisad neither of which is in the Muktika 108 list) and/or trying
to strengthen the advaita position given the diversity of deities in these
(which can later be dismissed as Vyavkarika satya :-)). Either way, something
from one of these outside of the principal Upanisads (plus a few other famous
one's) cannot be accepted as a valid support all by itself.
Also, in the list you gave, Subala Upanisad appears under sAmAnya vedAnta
upanishads whereas I know it is regarded as a Vaishnava Upanisad by some.
And Kaivalya Upanisad can hardly be regarded as a Shaiva Upanisad given that
it says, "sa brahma sa sivah sendrah so'ksarah paramah svarat, sa eva visnuh
sa pranah sa kalo'gnih sa candramah". So the classification is also questionable.
These are just a few more examples, you also mentioned Varaha and Ganapati
Upanisads in this regard.
Your coment about most of the sectarian (you didn't use the term but I am
using it to cover Vaishnavas, Shivas, Saktas et al.) coming from Atharva
Veda is also somewhat confusing. It is important to note in this regard that
of the 10 principal Upanisads, atleast a few are quite theistic (in layman's
terms) but only one extrols a particular deity, and that is the Katha Upanisad
with the famous "vijnana sarathir yastu manah pragrahavan narah; so dhvanah
param apnoti tad vishnoh paramam padam".
> In the context of the recent discussions about the meaning of
> pApayoNaya: in the gItA, I would draw particular attention to the
> vajrasUcI (#30) upanishad. This upanishad succinctly argues that birth
> cannot and must not determine who is a brAhmaNa and who is not.
True. "na vai saumya asmat kulino nanucya brahma bandhur iva bhavatiti" says
Chandogaya.
> Nor can
> samskAra by itself determine so. In reality, only the brahmavit has any
> right to be called a brAhmaNa. In the course of this argument, the
> upanishad explicitly states that no real distinction in quality can be
> made out between the jIvas of any two separate beings. So much for
> eternal jIva-tAratamya and its basis in vedAnta.
The said Upanisad says nothing about distinction in quality (or the lack of
it) between the jivas. Good that you mentioned the point about alternative
meanings. That saves me from fiddling thru the dictionary and my grammar book.
We can just use Radhakrishnan's translation instead.
I suppose you are refering to "tatra prathamo jivo brahmana iti cet tan na,
atitanagat aneka dhehanam jivasyaika rupatvat" and/or "tarhi ko va brahmano
nama? yah kascid atmanam, advitiyam, jati-guna-kriya-hinam ... bhava-matsaraya-
trasnasa-mohadi-rahitah dambha ahamkar adi bhir asamsprstaceta vartate, evam
ukta-laksano yah sa eva brahmana iti".
The first is translated as, 'Of these [Brahmana, Kshatriya, Vaisya, and Sudra],
if the first (position) that the jiva or the individual soul is brahmana
(is to be assumed) [vs. body, jati, knowledge, karma, or dharmika], it is not
so; for the individual's form is one and the same in the large number of
previous and perspective bodies.'
and the second one as, 'Then who verily is the brahmana? He who after directly
perceiving, like the amalaka fruit in the palm of one's hand, the Self, without
a second, devoid of distinctions of birth, attributes and actions [various
attributes of Supreme Brahman enlisted here] ... lives with the mind unaffected
by dhambha, ahamkara, and the like. He alone who is possesed of these qualities
is the brahamana.'
Neither of these interfere with the jiva-taratmaya theory at all. For instance,
the taratmaya does not say that a jiva's bhautik-varna/guna is the same as
his/her svabhavika-varna/guna at all times. A jiva with intrinsic sattva
guna can certainly take on tamo-guna during the course of transmigration based
upon karma and/or jnana. Same goes for the type of body he may occupy.
The second verse says that only a brahma-vit should be called a brahmana.
Again, there is no conflict because the Upanisad says nothing to the effect
that all jivas are equally likely to take up brahma-jnana and consequently
become a brahmana. If you say that is implied from the first verse, we will
say that is your interpretation. Remember that the taratmaya theory only comes
into play in the final stage, i.e. in deciding who *will* and who *will not*
get brahma-jnana. Just anything that describes a jiva on a particular path
(but having a particular svabhavika-varna/guna) does not constitute a refutation
of taratmaya. Such arguments only show the misunderstanding of that. Moreover,
it can be said that this Upanisad actually supports the taratmaya theory to the
extent that it says that a real brahmana is one whose intrinsic varna is
brahmana (since only he will become brahma-vit), specifically note "brahmana-
ksatria-vaisya-sudra iti catvaro varnah" and later "tatra codyam asti. ko va
brahmano nama?" in this regard. So the Upanisad clearly imposes a brahmana-varna
over and above the birth-based varna commonly accepted in the society.
> I can't deny that some clever dvaitin commentator may be able
> to find alternative meanings for each word in the upanishad so that it
> tells an entirely different story.
You are asking for trouble here! By your own reasoning, you could be called
a clever advaitan who found alternative meanings for each word in the upanishad
and told an entirely different story :-)
> S. Vidyasankar
Manish
Shrisha Rao
Sundaresan <vi...@cco.caltech.edu> wrote:
> I don't know that anyone has specifically questioned the authenticity of
> the muktikA upanishad itself. All the 108 upanishads listed in the
> muktikA as containing the gist of all vedAnta are extant, and there are
> also commentaries on them. Less than 250 years ago, Upanishad Brahmendra
> (rAmacandrendra saraswatI) wrote advaita commentaries to each one of
> these upanishads, so as far as advaita vedAnta is concerned, there is
> absolutely no doubt about any of the 108 upanishads listed. The kr.shNa
> upanishad, which is in the muktikA list, has been definitely available
> for a long while now, and it should not be too difficult to check if
> somebody is simply inventing a quote and attributing it to the kr.shNa
> or any other upanishad in the muktikA list. Of course, one may doubt
> whether the muktikA is apaurusheya, because it lists other upanishads,
> but it should be remembered that such self-referentiality is not at all
> uncommon in the corpus of Vedic texts.
All that is fine. Manish, however, seems to think Upanishad Brahmendra's
Upanishads aren't the same as those of the Muktikaa list; perhaps you
could clarify, although their being the same or not is merely of casual
interest to me, for reasons that should become clear further in this
posting.
More importantly, however, the question is what exactly is/are the
criterion/criteria for considering an Upanishad to be authentic. In that
I think we have significant differences.
There was a posting you made in the middle of December, which I could
not read until much later, thanks in large part to the hectus of the
recently-concluded SCI.J-K proposal breaking out at the same time,
which effectively stopped me from participating in or even reading SRV
discussions for weeks; that posting is located in the archives as:
http://www-ece.rice.edu/~vijaypai/srv/1995_12/msg00111.html
with a title "Re: Narada Muni and the Chandogya Upanishad."
I think I should quote some parts from there, as it has some relevance,
and may help us understand each other's point of view better.
Until otherwise indicated, the following quotes are all from that old
posting of December:
> You are right in that late compositions titled "upanishad" are
> typically attributed to the atharva veda. However, the situation
> regarding Sruti paramparA is somewhat different than what you say
> above. Even for the three well represented vedas, no Sruti paramparA
> recites brAhmaNas and upanishads the way the samhitA texts are
> recited.
There are a few errors in the above. For instance, the splitting of
Shruti as mantra/braahmaNa or as mantra/braahmaNa/araNyaka/upanishad
is by no means hard-and-fast. If it were, then part of the Taittiriiya
Upanishad, and *all* of the Iishaavaasya Upanishad, would not have been
part of the "mantra" portion! Thus, the following is not admissible:
> The famous upanishads like kauSITakI, br.hadAraNyaka, chAndogya etc.
> are not recited, and strictly speaking, there is no Sruti paramparA
> for them per se, except by means of their unquestioned association
> with their respective samhitAs, for which authentic Sruti paramparAs
> exist.
-- given that the Iishaavaasya, for instance, *is* (part of) its
"respective samhitA."
Second, if, as you claim, Upanishads do not have recitation traditions
and did not have them in the past, then how did they get to us at all?
Shruti was never written down until the eighteenth century at the
earliest, except for brief excerpts that were commented upon or quoted
in authored works.
In the case of these Upanishads, besides, Rshi, Chandas, and Devataa
are always known: for instance, if you read any of Ananda Tiirtha's
Upanishad-bhaashyas, the first thing he does after his customary initial
salutation to Sriman-NaaraayaNa is to state (and prove, if required) who
the Rshi, Chhandas, and Devataa for that Upanishad are. For instance, in
the case of the Aitareya Upanishad, the Devataa is generally known to
be Lakshmi, but he strongly argues that it is actually Vishnu and not
her who is the Devataa. The idea behind the stating of Rshi, Chhandas
and Devataa is that any Shruti has to have those three, else it fails to
be regarded as such; if I have heard and memorized some random statement
that perhaps originates in Shruti, but do not know these attributes,
then I cannot be said to have acquired it in a proper way. Therefore, if
the R, C, and D are not stated for an Upanishad, there is no
justification for its formal study as Shruti.
In fact, given the recent discussion on SRV about who is qualified to
study Shruti and who not, this may be worth mentioning. As far as my
understanding goes, if one studies bits and pieces of things coming
from Shruti but quoted in authored works, without knowing the R, C, and
D, then that is not considered to be the same as direct study of Shruti
itself, and is not restricted to those who have the authority to study
Shruti. This is at least true of the Maadhva sampradaaya.
Now, the existence of a Rshi is, I submit, ipso facto evidence of the
existence of a recitation paramparaa starting with said Rshi. The
Chhandas is just a grammatical metre, and is not unique to Shruti.
As far as the following goes:
> It is the lack of such recitation schemes for the upanishads
> that allows the tattvamasi/atattvamasi debate between advaita and
> dvaita in the first place. If there were proper recitation
> paramparAs for the upanishads, the question just wouldn't have
> arisen. One of the two readings would have immediately been ruled
> out.
-- I feel this is a matter that needs to be decided by a real scholar,
but I don't see how a recitation tradition (even *assuming* that one
does not actually exist) would help, for the following reasons:
1> The problem is not (just) whether the split should result in
"sa AtmA atat tvaM asi" or "sa AtmA tat tvaM asi," but (also) whether
the sentence and its adjuncts convey abheda or bheda. I'm sure the
significance of this point is not lost on you.
2> In Shruti, standard Paninian grammar often does not apply; for
instance, notice the use of `shIkshA' instead of 'shikshA' in the
Taittiriiya Upanishad, I-2. Such is also true of conjunction and
disjunctions -- there are cases in Shruti where unlike lowkika usages,
one can split a compound with a long a where a short one. For instance,
consider `vedAdhikAra', a word that has been bandied about much on SRV,
of late. As a lowkika word, it would have to be split as veda+adhikAra;
if the compound had been `vedadhikAra', then the split would have to be
as veda+dhikAra; however, in Vedic usage, vedadhikAra could be split as
veda+adhikAra, which is never done in classical Sanskrit. Given this,
whether the split should produce 'atat' or 'tat' is not obvious.
(My example with Vedaadhikaara or Vedadhikaara is hypothetical -- I have
no knowledge of either word being found in Shruti.)
> As a different example, let us take the SvetASvatara. It is not
> part of the taittirIya or the kANva or the madhyAndina SAkhAs, the
> only extant SAkhAs of the yajurveda. It is known in the literature
> as "SvetASvatarANAm mantropanishad" - implying that there was a
> SvetASvatara SAkhA, which has now died out. Here we have a case of a
> specific Sruti paramparA maintaining agency - the SAkhA - having
> died out, but the upanishad itself is accepted without question as
> Sruti. Similarly, there once used to be a kAThaka SAkhA from whom we
> have the kaThopanishad, but there is no kAThaka SAkhA now, and it
> makes no sense to question the kaThopanishad's authenticity because
> of the present absence of a Sruti paramparA. Hence, it does not
> follow that lack of Sruti paramparA for a given upanishad can always
> be held against it. Lack of Sruti paramparA for an upanishad is at
> best a weak argument, it may be stronger for the r.g, yajus and sAma
> samhitAs.
It is worth noting that a recitation paramparaa for a piece of Shruti
does *not* mean that one must have such a paramparaa for the entire
shaakhaa of whatever Veda it is said to come from. For instance, there
are several pieces from the mantra portions of Shruti that are quite
well-carried through oral recitation, but which are considered "khila"
because they are the sole surviving remnants of some now-lost shaakhaa
of their Veda. That the KaTha and other Upanishads are such does not
mean, ipso facto, that they do not have recitation traditions.
> Moreover, some confusion
> exists about which part of these upanishads are Sruti and which are
> not. For example, in the gauDapAdIya kArikAs on the mANDUkya, the
> advaitins do not consider any part of the kArikAs to be Sruti
> (though gauDapAda is a firm advaitin), but strangely enough, the
> dvaitins consider the first 27 kArikAs to be Sruti, and the rest to
> be gauDapAda's composition. Here you only have a disagreement on
> whether a well-known specific text is Sruti or not, but even this is
> not resolvable by turning to the presence or absence of a Sruti
> paramparA for support. The kArikAs are not recited, nor is the
> mANDUkya upanishad itself, but somehow the advaitins *know*
> something and the dvaitins *know* the opposite.
I've never heard anything of the kind before, honestly. Where did you
come across this piece of information? In any event, whether it is
Maadhvas or anyone else claiming, the rules are no different; if some
portion of what is commonly considered the GauDapaada-kaarikaa is held
to be Shruti, then such must be justified.
However, again, it must be noted that parts of Shruti verses may also
occur in Smrti; for instance, I'm sure you know that certain verses
in the Bhagavad Gita, or parts of certain verses from it, are also
found in certain Upanishads (the KaTha, Kena, etc.). Now, are those
verses Shruti or Smrti? The answer to that depends upon where one
obtains them from. If I study a certain line as coming from the
KaThopanishad, and correctly know the seer, the meter, and the Deity
praised by it, then it is Shruti; if I learn it from the 'Gita, then
it is Smrti.
Thus, it is quite sensible _not_ to consider any portion of the Kaarikaa
to be Shruti, but there is no conflict because any such claim can be
made only when a tradition of recitation is shown.
> The only practical solution to this whole issue would be to accept
> the listing of 108 upanishads in the muktikA upanishad, or some such
> listing from well-known commentators, and refuse accept any others,
-- end December posting quotes.
Now we come back to the present discussion and the posting followed
up to (I hope the relevance of the older posting is clear now).
The problem with simply accepting that a certain list of Upanishads is
Shruti is that it essentially places trust in known or unknown persons,
and reduces one's siddhaanta to a prophetic faith. In addition to that,
the problem is also one of logical error (other than the logical errors
inherent in prophetic acceptance).
For instance, if the Muktikaa Up.'s list of 108 Upanishads are
considered canonical, then we obtain a sort of distant cousin of
Russell's paradox, with respect to the Muktikaa itself; if its list
includes itself, then the Muktikaa justifies itself, which is
AtmAshraya; if it does not list itself, then it cannot be a canonical
listing at all, because at least one Upanishad not on its list must
be considered canonical. Finally, if the Upanishads on the list don't
have traditions of recitation, then how do we know that any claimed
texts are actually the Upanishads on the list? Written texts could have
been altered, or even completely bogus ones inserted in places where the
real ones should have been. If they _do_ have such traditions, on the
other hand, then what is the purpose of the list in proving their
canonicity? Such is surely known by the mere fact of there being oral
traditions, and the list is superfluous in that respect.
For these reasons, I believe that the canonical-Muktikaa-list concept
would not be acceptable to Maadhvas, at least not in the same sense as
the Advaitis and the Gaudiyas seem to take it. It is also the case that
Ananda Tiirtha himself quotes from Upanishads not on the list (for
example, from the Paramopanishad), and thus, too, he clearly does not
consider *only* the Upanishads listed as being authoritative.
However, it is possible for one to accept that the Muktikaa does list
these Upanishads, and explain them in a way that does not cause an
error. For instance, one could hold that the Upanishad is saying that
these Upanishads are all dedicated to praising Vishnu, or some such.
(This again is hypothetical.) Then, the list would be valid but would
be of like nature with, say, the BrhadaaraNyaka Upanishad's mention
of the various kinds of scriptures -- the list is right, but those
texts are not considered scripture because of the mention in that
Upanishad.
[*chomp*] -- much, including classified list of 108 Upanishads, deleted.
> Some comments on this list -
>
> The classification seems very reasonable, although some upanishads could
> possibly be classified under more than one heading. For example, it is
> unclear why varAha upanishad (#57 in the list) is called a yoga
[*chomp*]
Just curious. Who/what is the source of this classification? Also, is
the Varaaha Upanishad the same as the Mahaavaraaha Upanishad?
> In the context of the recent discussions about the meaning of
> pApayoNaya: in the gItA, I would draw particular attention to the
> vajrasUcI (#30) upanishad. This upanishad succinctly argues that birth
> cannot and must not determine who is a brAhmaNa and who is not. Nor can
> samskAra by itself determine so. In reality, only the brahmavit has any
> right to be called a brAhmaNa. In the course of this argument, the
> upanishad explicitly states that no real distinction in quality can be
> made out between the jIvas of any two separate beings. So much for
> eternal jIva-tAratamya and its basis in vedAnta.
I am not familiar with either this Upanishad or the statement you are
referring to, but I believe Manish has responded to this.
As for the jiiva-taaratamya theory, I'm sure you are aware that such
sources as the Taittiriiya Upanishad's second VaLLI support it, and
others like the Chhaandogya Up., and the Bhagavad Gita strongly suggest
it by asserting inherent characteristics to jiivas. Thus, your
interpretation is inconsistent.
Regards,
Shrisha Rao
Vidyasankar Sundaresan
>
> Vidyasankar Sundaresan <vi...@cco.caltech.edu> writes:
>
> > I don't know that anyone has specifically questioned the authenticity of
> > the muktikA upanishad itself. All the 108 upanishads listed in the
> > muktikA as containing the gist of all vedAnta are extant, and there are
> > also commentaries on them. Less than 250 years ago, Upanishad Brahmendra
> > (rAmacandrendra saraswatI) wrote advaita commentaries to each one of
> > these upanishads,
>
> in Muktika Upanisad and the 108 Upanisads commented by Upanishad Brahmendra
> are *not* the same! So which ones of the 108 are we supposed to accept?
Now I'm surprised. Do you have a list of the upanishads to which there
are commentaries by Upanishad Brahmendra?
> Should it be the common denominator of the two lists? Or are there two
> versions of Muktika itself which gives two different lists of 108 Upanisads?
> Again the question would be which Muktika should we accept.
>
> Upanishad Brahmendra commented upon the texts that were available at his
> time, but there is no guarantee that the texts of all of these Upanisads
> (regardless of the list of 108 itself) is really what it was or should be.
> Did advaitans maintain the 108 Upanisads prior to Upanishad Brahmendra's
> commenting upon them?
Obviously someone (or many people) did. Upanishad Brahmendra did have
the texts before him when he commented upon them. Go figure.
> Moreover his effort can also be viewed as one aming
> for social harmony (for example he commented upon both Kalisantaran and
> Ganapati Upanisad neither of which is in the Muktika 108 list) and/or trying
> to strengthen the advaita position given the diversity of deities in these
> (which can later be dismissed as Vyavkarika satya :-)).
No sir, both upanishads are in the muktikA list. Look at the list again.
> Either way, something
> from one of these outside of the principal Upanisads (plus a few other famous
> one's) cannot be accepted as a valid support all by itself.
That much I can agree with, I suppose. Which is why something like the
paramopanishad cannot be accepted as valid support of eternal bheda.
>
> Also, in the list you gave, Subala Upanisad appears under sAmAnya vedAnta
> upanishads whereas I know it is regarded as a Vaishnava Upanisad by some.
> And Kaivalya Upanisad can hardly be regarded as a Shaiva Upanisad given that
> it says, "sa brahma sa sivah sendrah so'ksarah paramah svarat, sa eva visnuh
> sa pranah sa kalo'gnih sa candramah". So the classification is also questionable.
Just before sa brahmA, sa Siva: etc. the kaivalya upanishad describes
Brahman as "umAsahAya" "nIlakaNTha" etc. That is why the upanishad is
classified as Saiva. By your argument, the mahAnArAyaNa upanishad can
hardly be classified as vaishNava, because it also says sa brahma, sa
Siva: etc. If one of SrIman nArAyaNa's names is Siva, the kaivalya
upanishad says that one of Siva's names is vishNu. I see little
justification for the sectarian antipathy towards anything said to be
Saiva. Real vaishNava-hood does not consist in crying foul every time
you hear the words Siva and Saiva.
> These are just a few more examples, you also mentioned Varaha and Ganapati
> Upanisads in this regard.
>
> Your coment about most of the sectarian (you didn't use the term but I am
> using it to cover Vaishnavas, Shivas, Saktas et al.) coming from Atharva
> Veda is also somewhat confusing.
It was just a statement of statistics.
S. Vidyasankar
....contd....
Manish Tandon
> Now I'm surprised. Do you have a list of the upanishads to which there
> are commentaries by Upanishad Brahmendra?
Sorry, I was comparing the lists posted by Vijay Pai and yourself. Seems like
your list is better organized since is gives the full names. Moreover, as you
later said (with regard to these other upanisads constituting pramanas)
That much I can agree with, I suppose. Which is why something like the
paramopanishad cannot be accepted as valid support of eternal bheda.
I have no desire to go any further on this, since we agree with the major
issue here.
> I see little justification for the sectarian antipathy towards anything
> said to be Saiva. Real vaishNava-hood does not consist in crying foul every
> time you hear the words Siva and Saiva.
This is yet another prejudiced and short-sighted claim. I only tried to show
some inconsistencies in the classification in the list you presented and I
could only do it for the Upanisads I have. Obviously if I wanted to take a
strict vaishnava position, I would have said that the classification is
bogus because all names being names of Vishnu and all srutis being words of
his praise, it does not make sense to label them as such. Rather I tried to
take a non-sacterian approach. Sorry, that was a mistake. Real advaita-hood
does not consist in crying foul every time you see a word from a dvaitan. So
you should think about that before criticizing others.
Manish
Vidyasankar Sundaresan
upanishads.
1. I only claim that a "practical solution" to decide which upanishads
are authentic is to accept the muktikA list as true. If this is
accepted, it follows that no upanishad mentioned in that list can be
dismissed lightly. But omission of a text from that list does not
automatically mean that the said text is not authentic. This gives the
benefit of the doubt to something like the paramopanishad, but this text
would still be regarded with suspicion by those who don't follow
AnandatIrtha.
2. This "practical solution" is subject to an acceptance of the muktikA
upanishad as Sruti, to begin with. If the muktikA is accepted as Sruti,
the fact that it refers to itself does not constitute of flaw of
AtmASraya. The br.hadAraNyaka refers to itself, not specifically by
name, but in the general category of upanishads that were breathed out
by the Supreme. Similarly, many hymns of the vedas refer to themselves
self-referentially as rks, atharvAngiras and so on. This is not a flaw
in the Sruti. Thus the muktikA's reference to itself is not a flaw,
unless of course, you can categorically prove that the muktikA is not
Sruti, or that it has been denied Sruti status by any of the existing
traditions of veda and vedAnta. If you question the Sruti status of the
muktikA, please be prepared to back it up with irrefutable proof,
instead of talking about peripheral details.
3. This "practical solution" is more an attempt to find common ground
among different vedAnta traditions, at least in terms of the upanishadic
texts that could be considered authentic. It is quite possible that such
a solution does not satisfy everybody. Also, to my knowledge, the real
scholars of advaita vedAnta have not taken a position one way or the
other on this issue. What you and I say or think about the muktikA list,
does not count in the final analysis.
That said, my response follows:
If you read more portions of the discussion from December 1995, I
specifically stated that the upanishads of the kr.shNa yajur veda form
an exception to my general statements. These few exceptions do not say
anything about the situation with respect to the vast majority of the
upanishads. Please keep this in mind when reading the rest of this
response.
I must clarify that the demarcation of Sruti into mantra and brAhmaNa is
fairly hard-and-fast. What is not so straightforward is the position of
the upanishads. In the r.g, sAma, Sukla yajus and atharva SAkhAs, the
upanishads all fall in the brAhmaNa portions. It is only in the kr.shNa
yajus that the ISAvAsya is completely in the mantra portion and the
taittirIya spans mantra and brAhmaNa portions. In this context, it is
important to keep in mind the ancient controversy over yAjnavalkya's
effort to rearrange the yajurveda so that the mantra and brAhmaNa
portions were demarcated properly.
>
> Second, if, as you claim, Upanishads do not have recitation traditions
> and did not have them in the past, then how did they get to us at all?
> Shruti was never written down until the eighteenth century at the
> earliest, except for brief excerpts that were commented upon or quoted
> in authored works.
It is not true that Sruti was never written down until the eighteenth
century. I am aware of manuscripts of the vedAbhAshyas from many
centuries before then. The vedas have been quoted in full and in serial
order in some of these bhAshyas, so it is somewhat of a stretch to say
that Sruti was never written down. But that is besides the point. As far
as the upanishads are concerned, the various bhAshyakAras did not just
write their commentaries without writing down the text that they were
commenting upon. Thus, at least since the eighth century, the upanishads
have been written down, if only in the course of a commentary upon their
text. This is a full thousand years before your projected period and
covers the history of all post-Sankaran vedAnta.
A full recitation tradition encompasses not only the text (padapATha) of
the verses and the prose passages, but also other kinds of pAThas known
as kramapATha, ghanapATha, rathapATha and so on. In these kinds of
recitation schemes, the syllables are rearranged according to different
patterns, so that the straight text can be reconstructed with the aid of
the memory alone. These different kinds of pAThas exist only for the
samhitAs and not for the brAhmaNas. That is why there is no doubt about
the texts of the r.k and yajus verses. I described some of these pATha
schemes in detail in my earlier post in December.
On the other hand, it is true that the upanishads were handed down also
primarily by means of oral instruction. But there are no elaborate
schemes that have been devised for them as in the case of the samhitA.
What has come down is the straight texts with the variants in the
various SAkhAs, without the added benefit of krama, ghana and ratha
pAThas for them. That is why I said that there are no strict recitation
paramparas for the upanishads, except through their association with
their acknowledged samhitAs. It is quite probable that the old mImAmsA
attitude that the upanishads and the brAhmaNas are just arthavAda, was
responsible for the lack of elaborate recitation schemes for these
portions of the vedas.
>
> In the case of these Upanishads, besides, Rshi, Chandas, and Devataa
> are always known: for instance, if you read any of Ananda Tiirtha's
> Upanishad-bhaashyas, the first thing he does after his customary initial
> salutation to Sriman-NaaraayaNa is to state (and prove, if required) who
> the Rshi, Chhandas, and Devataa for that Upanishad are. For instance,
The existence of r.shi, chandas and devatA for the upanishad does not
mean that the upanishads were recited the same way as the mantras were.
And an oral tradition is not exactly the same as a "recitation
tradition".
Also, r.shi, chandas and devatA do not Sruti make. The vishNu
sahasranAmam has all these specified, but is smr.ti, not Sruti. Thus,
even if you quote r.shi, chandas and devatA for some text, it does not
follow that the said text is to be accepted as Sruti by all.
in
> the case of the Aitareya Upanishad, the Devataa is generally known to
> be Lakshmi, but he strongly argues that it is actually Vishnu and not
> her who is the Devataa. The idea behind the stating of Rshi, Chhandas
> and Devataa is that any Shruti has to have those three, else it fails to
> be regarded as such; if I have heard and memorized some random statement
> that perhaps originates in Shruti, but do not know these attributes,
> then I cannot be said to have acquired it in a proper way. Therefore, if
> the R, C, and D are not stated for an Upanishad, there is no
> justification for its formal study as Shruti.
Agreed, all Sruti has these three specified. However, the existence of
R, C and D do not prove that a text is Sruti. And now we have yet
another problem. Tradition gives a particular devatA, but AnandatIrtha
argues for another. This leaves room for those outside your tradition to
criticize you for following "prophets". And please note that they will
not be relying on a tenet of your own school in order to criticize it.
The apaurusheyatva of Sruti is accepted by all vedAnta schools, and the
r.shi, chandas and devatA of as important an upanishad as the aitareya,
are known beyond any possibility of doubt.
>
> In fact, given the recent discussion on SRV about who is qualified to
> study Shruti and who not, this may be worth mentioning. As far as my
> understanding goes, if one studies bits and pieces of things coming
> from Shruti but quoted in authored works, without knowing the R, C, and
> D, then that is not considered to be the same as direct study of Shruti
> itself, and is not restricted to those who have the authority to study
> Shruti. This is at least true of the Maadhva sampradaaya.
>
> Now, the existence of a Rshi is, I submit, ipso facto evidence of the
> existence of a recitation paramparaa starting with said Rshi. The
> Chhandas is just a grammatical metre, and is not unique to Shruti.
>
> As far as the following goes:
>
> > It is the lack of such recitation schemes for the upanishads
> > that allows the tattvamasi/atattvamasi debate between advaita and
> > dvaita in the first place. If there were proper recitation
> > paramparAs for the upanishads, the question just wouldn't have
> > arisen. One of the two readings would have immediately been ruled
> > out.
>
> -- I feel this is a matter that needs to be decided by a real scholar,
> but I don't see how a recitation tradition (even *assuming* that one
> does not actually exist) would help, for the following reasons:
>
> 1> The problem is not (just) whether the split should result in
> "sa AtmA atat tvaM asi" or "sa AtmA tat tvaM asi," but (also) whether
> the sentence and its adjuncts convey abheda or bheda. I'm sure the
> significance of this point is not lost on you.
I was talking purely from a textual point of view, without taking into
account interpretative efforts. The existence, or lack of it, of the
denying particle "a", would have been confimed if there were krama,
ghana and ratha pAThas for the chAndogya upanishad. It is possible to
understand vedic hymns without recourse to standard pANinian grammar,
only because of these pATha schemes. For example, in cases where sandhi
does not result in an elongation of the vowel in a vedic hymn, the fact
that there is a sandhi there, is known not through the straight
padapaTha, but by the breaking up and rearrangement of syllables that
occurs in the other pAThas. Thus, there is no scope for any ambiguity in
the text. It is the lack of such pATha schemes that opens room for
ambiguity in the text of the chAndogya. One of the two readings would
have automatically been ruled out, and we would have been *forced* to
interpret the sentence and its adjuncts based upon the unique pada
reading that is consistent with the other pAThas. One of the two
schools, dvaita or advaita, would have never been born then. It is the
absence of different pAThas that allows the varying interpretations to
even begin in the first place. I hope the significance of this point is
not lost on you. Note that we categorically deny that the sentence and
its adjuncts indicate bheda.
>
> > As a different example, let us take the SvetASvatara. It is not
> > part of the taittirIya or the kANva or the madhyAndina SAkhAs, the
> > only extant SAkhAs of the yajurveda. It is known in the literature
> > as "SvetASvatarANAm mantropanishad" - implying that there was a
> > SvetASvatara SAkhA, which has now died out. Here we have a case of a
> > specific Sruti paramparA maintaining agency - the SAkhA - having
> > died out, but the upanishad itself is accepted without question as
> > Sruti. Similarly, there once used to be a kAThaka SAkhA from whom we
> > have the kaThopanishad, but there is no kAThaka SAkhA now, and it
> > makes no sense to question the kaThopanishad's authenticity because
> > of the present absence of a Sruti paramparA. Hence, it does not
> > follow that lack of Sruti paramparA for a given upanishad can always
> > be held against it. Lack of Sruti paramparA for an upanishad is at
> > best a weak argument, it may be stronger for the r.g, yajus and sAma
> > samhitAs.
>
> It is worth noting that a recitation paramparaa for a piece of Shruti
> does *not* mean that one must have such a paramparaa for the entire
> shaakhaa of whatever Veda it is said to come from. For instance, there
> are several pieces from the mantra portions of Shruti that are quite
> well-carried through oral recitation, but which are considered "khila"
> because they are the sole surviving remnants of some now-lost shaakhaa
> of their Veda. That the KaTha and other Upanishads are such does not
> mean, ipso facto, that they do not have recitation traditions.
>
You are not saying anything much different from what I said earlier. A
"recitation paramparA" is more than mere oral transmission of a text.
Note that by "recitation tradition", I mean the existence of
well-structured pATha schemes, which do not exist for any upanishad that
is found in the brAhmaNa portions.
> > Moreover, some confusion
> > exists about which part of these upanishads are Sruti and which are
> > not. For example, in the gauDapAdIya kArikAs on the mANDUkya, the
> > advaitins do not consider any part of the kArikAs to be Sruti
> > (though gauDapAda is a firm advaitin), but strangely enough, the
> > dvaitins consider the first 27 kArikAs to be Sruti, and the rest to
> > be gauDapAda's composition. Here you only have a disagreement on
> > whether a well-known specific text is Sruti or not, but even this is
> > not resolvable by turning to the presence or absence of a Sruti
> > paramparA for support. The kArikAs are not recited, nor is the
> > mANDUkya upanishad itself, but somehow the advaitins *know*
> > something and the dvaitins *know* the opposite.
>
> I've never heard anything of the kind before, honestly. Where did you
> come across this piece of information? In any event, whether it is
> Maadhvas or anyone else claiming, the rules are no different; if some
> portion of what is commonly considered the GauDapaada-kaarikaa is held
> to be Shruti, then such must be justified.
>
Every author who deals with gauDapAda in any way points this out. Check
Karl Potter's Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies, vol 3, for
references.
>
> The problem with simply accepting that a certain list of Upanishads is
> Shruti is that it essentially places trust in known or unknown persons,
> and reduces one's siddhaanta to a prophetic faith. In addition to that,
> the problem is also one of logical error (other than the logical errors
> inherent in prophetic acceptance).
Since when did the muktikA become a prophet? If you are interested in
proving that the muktikA is not Sruti, please find irrefutable proof for
that. If the muktikA is Sruti, you have no choice but to accept all the
upanishads that it acknowledges to be Sruti.
>
> For instance, if the Muktikaa Up.'s list of 108 Upanishads are
> considered canonical, then we obtain a sort of distant cousin of
> Russell's paradox, with respect to the Muktikaa itself; if its list
> includes itself, then the Muktikaa justifies itself, which is
> AtmAshraya; if it does not list itself, then it cannot be a canonical
> listing at all, because at least one Upanishad not on its list must
AtmASraya is not a fault in Sruti, or is it, in your school?
> be considered canonical. Finally, if the Upanishads on the list don't
> have traditions of recitation, then how do we know that any claimed
> texts are actually the Upanishads on the list? Written texts could have
> been altered, or even completely bogus ones inserted in places where the
> real ones should have been. If they _do_ have such traditions, on the
> other hand, then what is the purpose of the list in proving their
> canonicity? Such is surely known by the mere fact of there being oral
> traditions, and the list is superfluous in that respect.
>
This whole discussion began in the context of the fact that oral
traditions are dying out at a rapid rate. In a century's time, there may
not be any oral traditions left for even the major vedic texts. This
danger is quite real. At the same time, "ancient" manuscripts of
hitherto unheard of texts keep cropping up miraculously at the most
unlikely places. This is where such lists come into place. If we were a
vibrant vedic society, where everybody followed the proper varNASrama
dharma, I agree, the muktikA list would be superfluous. For that matter,
if we followed our varNASrama dharma strictly, you and I would not be
sitting at computer terminals in the US, talking about the muktikA list
in the first place. Will you be asking the same question "how do we know
that written texts have not been altered?" about the br.hadAraNyaka, for
instance, if you were living at a time when no oral traditions have
survived?
> For these reasons, I believe that the canonical-Muktikaa-list concept
> would not be acceptable to Maadhvas, at least not in the same sense as
> the Advaitis and the Gaudiyas seem to take it. It is also the case that
> Ananda Tiirtha himself quotes from Upanishads not on the list (for
> example, from the Paramopanishad), and thus, too, he clearly does not
> consider *only* the Upanishads listed as being authoritative.
Note my comments at the beginning of this post.
>
> However, it is possible for one to accept that the Muktikaa does list
> these Upanishads, and explain them in a way that does not cause an
> error. For instance, one could hold that the Upanishad is saying that
> these Upanishads are all dedicated to praising Vishnu, or some such.
> (This again is hypothetical.) Then, the list would be valid but would
> be of like nature with, say, the BrhadaaraNyaka Upanishad's mention
> of the various kinds of scriptures -- the list is right, but those
> texts are not considered scripture because of the mention in that
> Upanishad.
>
The existence of an upanishad in the muktikA list is only an additional
piece of evidence. This is just like the tradition of quoting smr.ti, in
addition to quoting Sruti. Surely, by the accepted canons of
interpretation, no commentator needs to quote any smr.ti at all. So, why
do they do it then? Similarly, one might want to quote the muktikA list
in support of a statement, but maybe not as the primary and sole proof.
> [*chomp*] -- much, including classified list of 108 Upanishads, deleted.
>
> > Some comments on this list -
> >
> > The classification seems very reasonable, although some upanishads could
> > possibly be classified under more than one heading. For example, it is
> > unclear why varAha upanishad (#57 in the list) is called a yoga
>
> [*chomp*]
>
> Just curious. Who/what is the source of this classification? Also, is
> the Varaaha Upanishad the same as the Mahaavaraaha Upanishad?
Don't know, to both questions.
>
> As for the jiiva-taaratamya theory, I'm sure you are aware that such
> sources as the Taittiriiya Upanishad's second VaLLI support it, and
> others like the Chhaandogya Up., and the Bhagavad Gita strongly suggest
> it by asserting inherent characteristics to jiivas. Thus, your
> interpretation is inconsistent.
You don't seriously expect any non-dvaitin to accept this, do you? If we
were to agree that the second valli of the taittirIya and the gItA
support jIva-tAratamya, in moksha, then we might all as well give up and
become followers of one of the swamijis from Udipi. That is not going to
happen any time soon, I suppose.
>
> Regards,
>
> Shrisha Rao
S. Vidyasankar
----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -----
Shrisha Rao
In article <4lmtt5$q...@newsstand.cit.cornell.edu>, Vidyasankar
Sundaresan <vi...@cco.caltech.edu> wrote:
> At the outset, let me clarify the position on the muktikA list of
> upanishads.
Please do.
> 1. I only claim that a "practical solution" to decide which upanishads
> are authentic is to accept the muktikA list as true. If this is
> accepted, it follows that no upanishad mentioned in that list can be
> dismissed lightly. But omission of a text from that list does not
> automatically mean that the said text is not authentic. This gives the
> benefit of the doubt to something like the paramopanishad, but this
[*chomp*]
However, in the posting of December available at:
http://www-ece.rice.edu/~vijaypai/srv/1995_12/msg00111.html
you said --
The only practical solution to this whole issue would be to accept
the listing of 108 upanishads in the muktikA upanishad, or some such
listing from well-known commentators, and refuse accept any others,
Note the last part, "and refuse to accept any others." Thus, it would
seem seem that the most recent "practical solution" differs from the
one of December last, in being ambivalent towards Upanishads not on the
Muktikaa list, rather than dismissive of them.
> 2. This "practical solution" is subject to an acceptance of the muktikA
> upanishad as Sruti, to begin with. If the muktikA is accepted as Sruti,
> the fact that it refers to itself does not constitute of flaw of
> AtmASraya.
[*chomp*]
I did myself say something similar before: not that if the Muktikaa is
accepted as Shruti there is no flaw, but that if it *is* Shruti then
there is no flaw.
> Thus the muktikA's reference to itself is not a flaw,
> unless of course, you can categorically prove that the muktikA is not
> Sruti, or that it has been denied Sruti status by any of the existing
> traditions of veda and vedAnta. If you question the Sruti status of the
> muktikA, please be prepared to back it up with irrefutable proof,
> instead of talking about peripheral details.
If there exists a tradition of reciting the Muktikaa, then I could be
asked for proof, but if not, then there's nothing for me to prove; the
claimed Upanishad would fall under "na cha kenachit krtvaa veda ityuktam
vedasamam paramparaabhaavaat." Yes, that's the *right* application of
the tenet of "paramparaabhaavat."
> 3. This "practical solution" is more an attempt to find common ground
> among different vedAnta traditions, at least in terms of the
[*chomp*]
However, it must first find common ground with the earlier "practical
solution," else it will only add to the confusion.
> Shrisha Rao wrote:
>
> > In article <4kkige$e...@newsstand.cit.cornell.edu>, Vidyasankar
> > Sundaresan <vi...@cco.caltech.edu> wrote:
> > > You are right in that late compositions titled "upanishad" are
> > > typically attributed to the atharva veda. However, the situation
> > > regarding Sruti paramparA is somewhat different than what you say
> > > above. Even for the three well represented vedas, no Sruti paramparA
> > > recites brAhmaNas and upanishads the way the samhitA texts are
> > > recited.
>
> > There are a few errors in the above. For instance, the splitting of
> > Shruti as mantra/braahmaNa or as mantra/braahmaNa/araNyaka/upanishad
> > is by no means hard-and-fast. If it were, then part of the Taittiriiya
> > Upanishad, and *all* of the Iishaavaasya Upanishad, would not have been
> > part of the "mantra" portion! Thus, the following is not admissible:
[*chomp*]
> If you read more portions of the discussion from December 1995, I
> specifically stated that the upanishads of the kr.shNa yajur veda form
> an exception to my general statements. These few exceptions do not say
"Even for the three well-represented... no Sruti paramparA recites
brAhmaNas and upanishads" seemed fairly strong, and not very admissive
of possible exceptions. Hence the confusion.
> > Second, if, as you claim, Upanishads do not have recitation traditions
> > and did not have them in the past, then how did they get to us at all?
> > Shruti was never written down until the eighteenth century at the
> > earliest, except for brief excerpts that were commented upon or quoted
> > in authored works.
>
> It is not true that Sruti was never written down until the eighteenth
> century. I am aware of manuscripts of the vedAbhAshyas from many
> centuries before then. The vedas have been quoted in full and in serial
> order in some of these bhAshyas, so it is somewhat of a stretch to say
> that Sruti was never written down. But that is besides the point. As far
> as the upanishads are concerned, the various bhAshyakAras did not just
> write their commentaries without writing down the text that they were
> commenting upon. Thus, at least since the eighth century, the upanishads
> have been written down, if only in the course of a commentary upon their
> text. This is a full thousand years before your projected period and
> covers the history of all post-Sankaran vedAnta.
Actually, I wasn't very clear, and was partially incorrect. I meant to
say that there are no _uncommented_ copies of Shruti dating older than
the eighteenth century or so. Commentaries of course have existed for
a lot longer, and even Raghavendra Tiirtha, a comparatively recent
commentator, wrote his in the seventeenth century.
> A full recitation tradition encompasses not only the text (padapATha) of
> the verses and the prose passages, but also other kinds of pAThas known
> as kramapATha, ghanapATha, rathapATha and so on. In these kinds of
> recitation schemes, the syllables are rearranged according to different
[*chomp*]
> On the other hand, it is true that the upanishads were handed down also
> primarily by means of oral instruction. But there are no elaborate
> schemes that have been devised for them as in the case of the samhitA.
This is not true; a scholar who memorizes the entire corpus of, say,
the Rg Veda (there are such even today), does not memorize all of the
samhita portions in one way, and all of the braahmaNa in another. They
can, in fact, recite any portion of it, mantra or braahmaNa, from
memory, and also can answer questions like: "What is the seventeenth
syllable of the fifth verse of such-and-such?"
> What has come down is the straight texts with the variants in the
> various SAkhAs, without the added benefit of krama, ghana and ratha
> pAThas for them. That is why I said that there are no strict
It may be that one who is used to seeing only printed texts will think
that only "straight texts" exist, but the recitation tradition exists
as well.
> > In the case of these Upanishads, besides, Rshi, Chandas, and Devataa
> > are always known: for instance, if you read any of Ananda Tiirtha's
> > Upanishad-bhaashyas, the first thing he does after his customary initial
> > salutation to Sriman-NaaraayaNa is to state (and prove, if required) who
> > the Rshi, Chhandas, and Devataa for that Upanishad are. For instance,
>
> The existence of r.shi, chandas and devatA for the upanishad does not
> mean that the upanishads were recited the same way as the mantras were.
> And an oral tradition is not exactly the same as a "recitation
> tradition".
I was responding to your saying:
Substantial portions of the upanishads are in prose, not in verse,
and there are no hastakriyAs, r.shi, devatA, chandas etc. associated
with the prose sections, at least as far as I am aware of.
in the earlier posting.
> Also, r.shi, chandas and devatA do not Sruti make. The vishNu
> sahasranAmam has all these specified, but is smr.ti, not Sruti. Thus,
> even if you quote r.shi, chandas and devatA for some text, it does not
> follow that the said text is to be accepted as Sruti by all.
Refer above. In any event, Shruti is not "made" by anything: it just
*is*. My only point was that Upanishads do have R, C, and D associated
with them, as all Shrutis do.
> in
> > the case of the Aitareya Upanishad, the Devataa is generally known to
> > be Lakshmi, but he strongly argues that it is actually Vishnu and not
> > her who is the Devataa.
> And now we have yet another problem. Tradition gives a particular
> devatA, but AnandatIrtha argues for another. This leaves room for
> those outside your tradition to criticize you for following
> "prophets". And please note that they will not be relying on a tenet
> of your own school in order to criticize it.
However, such disputes about who the Devataa of a specific Shruti is,
are not unheard-of. Shaivas and Vaishnavas have disputed for more time
than recorded history goes, as to who the Devataa of the Purusha
Suukta is, and the debate carries on, for instance in the
Nyaaya-Sudhaa, where the Vaishnava position is strongly argued for.
In fact, it is possible for the same piece of Shruti to simultaneously
have different Devataas, and there are examples for this. The
Gaayatrii mantra that is chanted during sandhyaavandanam is considered
to have Savitaa or Savitr-naamaka-Paramaatmaa as its Devataa. But the
Gaayatrii is also the invocation mantra for a Brahmaastra. If one has
received the Brahmaastra from a Guru, then the same Gaayatrii which
commonly is understood to refer to Suurya or Suurya-NaaraayaNa, can
refer then to chatur-mukha Brahma and bring up his cosmic weapon for
one's use.
There is a tradition that this dichotomy of Devataa references did
come to the fore once, when Vishwaamitra, then a kshatriya, tried to
wrest VasishhTha's cow Nandinii. VasishhTha simply held up his
"brahma-daNDa" and chanted the Gaayatrii, while Vishwaamitra hurled
weapon after weapon at it, to no avail. Finally, he used the
Brahmaastra, his most potent weapon, but that too was reduced to
nothing by VasishhTha's staff. Vishwaamitra himself then made the
astute observation:
dhik.h balaM xatriya-balaM brahma-tejo-balaM balam.h |
ekena brahma-daNDena sarva shastre hatAni me ||
Crudely:
The strength of kshatriya might is nothing; it is the strength of
spirituality that is real strength. All of my weapons were killed
by just one ascetic's staff.
Now, in this instance, the potency of the Gaayatrii as the source of
"Brahma-tejas" was seen to be higher than its potency as the
invocation mantra for the Brahmaastra. It can also be understood as
evidence of the Supremacy of Vishnu over chatur-mukha-Brahma, and as
supportive of the tenet that Shruti primarily speaks of Him, only:
"mukhyataH sarva-shabdaishcha vAchya eko janArdanaH," and that thus
one who correctly understands its superior meaning will perform better
with it than one who does otherwise and attempts to obtain mundane use
out of it.
Anyway, to come to the point after all this, I'd say therefore that a
situation of conflicting claims about who the Devataa of a Shruti is,
is neither an error by itself, nor unprecedented. Ananda Tiirtha's
position also need not be understood as completely excluding the
traditional view, but as indicating that the primary Devataa was
someone other than the one tradition upheld in that case. This also
happens in other instances such as the Agni-suukta, which as the name
itself indicates is considered to have the fire-god Agni as its deity,
but is thought to refer to Vishnu in the form of Parashuraama, as its
Devataa.
> The apaurusheyatva of Sruti is accepted by all vedAnta schools, and
I'd say *proved*, at least in one case, and possibly in others, although
I'm yet to find any relevant references for the others'.
> the r.shi, chandas and devatA of as important an upanishad as the
> aitareya, are known beyond any possibility of doubt.
A Shaiva might say something very similar about the Purusha Suukta, but
that's not going to deter anyone from a Vaishnava tradition. And vice
versa.
> > As far as the following goes:
>
> > > It is the lack of such recitation schemes for the upanishads
> > > that allows the tattvamasi/atattvamasi debate between advaita and
> > > dvaita in the first place. If there were proper recitation
> > > paramparAs for the upanishads, the question just wouldn't have
> > > arisen. One of the two readings would have immediately been ruled
> > > out.
>
> > -- I feel this is a matter that needs to be decided by a real scholar,
> > but I don't see how a recitation tradition (even *assuming* that one
> > does not actually exist) would help, for the following reasons:
>
> > 1> The problem is not (just) whether the split should result in
> > "sa AtmA atat tvaM asi" or "sa AtmA tat tvaM asi," but (also) whether
> > the sentence and its adjuncts convey abheda or bheda. I'm sure the
> > significance of this point is not lost on you.
>
> I was talking purely from a textual point of view, without taking into
> account interpretative efforts. The existence, or lack of it, of the
> denying particle "a", would have been confimed if there were krama,
If I'm not mistaken, the Maadhva position is that the "denying particle"
may or may not be considered to exist, based upon how one parses the
whole sentence, and in fact, in all of Shruti, such multiple parsings
are possible in a host of different cases, and not just because of
absence of recitation traditions. Thus, the following is inapplicable:
> For example, in cases where sandhi
> does not result in an elongation of the vowel in a vedic hymn, the fact
> that there is a sandhi there, is known not through the straight
> padapaTha, but by the breaking up and rearrangement of syllables that
> occurs in the other pAThas. Thus, there is no scope for any ambiguity in
> the text. It is the lack of such pATha schemes that opens room for
> ambiguity in the text of the chAndogya. One of the two readings would
> have automatically been ruled out, and we would have been *forced* to
> interpret the sentence and its adjuncts based upon the unique pada
> reading that is consistent with the other pAThas. One of the two
> schools, dvaita or advaita, would have never been born then. It is the
This also is questionable, since only Advaita is imperiled by the
absence of one reading.
> > It is worth noting that a recitation paramparaa for a piece of Shruti
> > does *not* mean that one must have such a paramparaa for the entire
> > shaakhaa of whatever Veda it is said to come from. For instance, there
> > are several pieces from the mantra portions of Shruti that are quite
> > well-carried through oral recitation, but which are considered "khila"
> > because they are the sole surviving remnants of some now-lost shaakhaa
> > of their Veda. That the KaTha and other Upanishads are such does not
> > mean, ipso facto, that they do not have recitation traditions.
>
> You are not saying anything much different from what I said earlier. A
[*chomp*]
Yes, I was. What you said before was:
Here we have a case of a specific Sruti paramparA maintaining agency
- the SAkhA - having died out, but the upanishad itself is accepted
without question as Sruti.
A shaakhaa is not a "Sruti paramparA maintaining agency." That is what
I was trying to point out.
> > As for the jiiva-taaratamya theory, I'm sure you are aware that such
> > sources as the Taittiriiya Upanishad's second VaLLI support it, and
> > others like the Chhaandogya Up., and the Bhagavad Gita strongly suggest
> > it by asserting inherent characteristics to jiivas. Thus, your
> > interpretation is inconsistent.
>
> You don't seriously expect any non-dvaitin to accept this, do you? If we
> were to agree that the second valli of the taittirIya and the gItA
> support jIva-tAratamya, in moksha, then we might all as well give up and
> become followers of one of the swamijis from Udipi. That is not going to
> happen any time soon, I suppose.
I imagine not. You could try becoming a "follower" of the Vyaasaraaya
MaTha instead...
Vidyasankar Sundaresan
Shrisha Rao wrote:
>
> In article <4lmtt5$q...@newsstand.cit.cornell.edu>, Vidyasankar
> Sundaresan <vi...@cco.caltech.edu> wrote:
>
> > At the outset, let me clarify the position on the muktikA list of
> > upanishads.
>
> Please do.
>
> > 1. I only claim that a "practical solution" to decide which upanishads
> > are authentic is to accept the muktikA list as true. If this is
> > accepted, it follows that no upanishad mentioned in that list can be
> > dismissed lightly. But omission of a text from that list does not
> > automatically mean that the said text is not authentic. This gives the
> > benefit of the doubt to something like the paramopanishad, but this
>
> [*chomp*]
>
> However, in the posting of December available at:
>
> http://www-ece.rice.edu/~vijaypai/srv/1995_12/msg00111.html
>
> you said --
>
> The only practical solution to this whole issue would be to accept
> the listing of 108 upanishads in the muktikA upanishad, or some such
> listing from well-known commentators, and refuse accept any others,
>
> Note the last part, "and refuse to accept any others." Thus, it would
> seem seem that the most recent "practical solution" differs from the
> one of December last, in being ambivalent towards Upanishads not on the
> Muktikaa list, rather than dismissive of them.
>
I have since modified my earlier position, so as to give the benefit of
doubt to some texts that you claim to be Sruti, but are not listed in
the muktikA. After all, a "practical solution" that attempts to find
common ground regarding texts has to be "practical". Therefore the
change in emphasis since last December.
> If there exists a tradition of reciting the Muktikaa, then I could be
> asked for proof, but if not, then there's nothing for me to prove; the
> claimed Upanishad would fall under "na cha kenachit krtvaa veda ityuktam
> vedasamam paramparaabhaavaat." Yes, that's the *right* application of
> the tenet of "paramparaabhaavat."
Well, going by the "right" application of the tenet of paramparAbhAvAt,
the advaita school has indeed maintained the muktikA and a whole number
of other upanishads. These have all been transmitted verbally, hence
come with a "recitation tradition". Either you have to prove that the
Sruti paramparA(s) of the advaitins is/are bogus or that the muktikA is
in fact somebody's composition claimed to be veda - "kenacit kr.tvA veda
ityuktam".
By your own lights, is there or was there ever a recitation tradition
for the paramopanishad and other Srutis unique to AnandatIrtha, to
justify this? I seriously doubt it. How will you prove me wrong, or help
me get rid of the suspicion that any recitation that exists today for
these, is not more than a few centuries old, or that it is restricted to
a small group of brAhmaNas from South Kanara, and therefore not
universally acceptable? A similar situation exists for some of the SAkta
upanishads, for example. How is one to decide between the two? Don't
tell me vishNu-sArvottamatva, because that again is not going to be
universally acceptable.
You see how "your paramparA" vs. "my paramparA" complicates the "right"
application of the tenet of paramparAbhAvAt?
>
> "Even for the three well-represented... no Sruti paramparA recites
> brAhmaNas and upanishads" seemed fairly strong, and not very admissive
> of possible exceptions. Hence the confusion.
>
I assumed that the rather unique situation of the kr.shNa yajus was so
well-known that it didn't need specific mention as an exception in this
context.
>
> This is not true; a scholar who memorizes the entire corpus of, say,
> the Rg Veda (there are such even today), does not memorize all of the
> samhita portions in one way, and all of the braahmaNa in another. They
> can, in fact, recite any portion of it, mantra or braahmaNa, from
> memory, and also can answer questions like: "What is the seventeenth
> syllable of the fifth verse of such-and-such?"
>
So, a scholar who memorizes the sAma veda, if asked for the required
syllable in sa Atma tattvamasi, would reply 'tat' if he were an advaitin
and 'a' if he were dvaitin, right? Or would the dvaitin say, "maybe 'a',
maybe 'tat'; it depends on how I want to parse this sentence"?
In any case, not everybody who learns to recite the r.g veda learns the
ghana and other pAThas. Only some pundits specialize in learning
ghanapATha and are called ghanapAThI's. Those who learn only the
straight texts are no doubt very competent, but if there is the
slightest doubt about a text anywhere, they turn to these specialists
for clarification. And my major point, in the context of Sruti
paramparAs, was that such is impossible to do with the upanishads, and
has been impossible for ages now, because of the absence of pATha
schemes.
> > What has come down is the straight texts with the variants in the
> > various SAkhAs, without the added benefit of krama, ghana and ratha
> > pAThas for them. That is why I said that there are no strict
>
> It may be that one who is used to seeing only printed texts will think
> that only "straight texts" exist, but the recitation tradition exists
> as well.
Well, let's not get bogged down by the word "recitation". I am saying
that the recitation and oral transmission of samhitAs is structured
differently from that of the brAhmaNas and AraNyakas, including the
upanishads. In case of doubt or dispute about the reading of the text,
the samhitA text of any SAkhA can be known with certainty, but not so in
the case of the upanishads. If you don't agree with this description of
what it takes to be a full "recitation tradition", fine. We aren't
getting anywhere with this discussion then.
But don't expect to resolve the doubt about the reading of the text by
referring to the sentence and its adjuncts. This allows interpretation
to dictate what a text reads or "should" read, and once we allow that,
we may as well forget about the text completely. Therefore the dispute
about the reading of the upanishad will remain for all time, and there
can be no further scope of any dialogue between the two vedAnta
traditions.
[...deleted...]
> If I'm not mistaken, the Maadhva position is that the "denying particle"
> may or may not be considered to exist, based upon how one parses the
> whole sentence, and in fact, in all of Shruti, such multiple parsings
> are possible in a host of different cases, and not just because of
> absence of recitation traditions. Thus, the following is inapplicable:
>
We don't accept this and therefore we stick with the traditional view.
In fact, the very reason for the existence of various pAThas is to
preserve the correct parsing of Sruti. I have myself seen old pundits,
whose memories are failing in all other respects, and who don't
recognize their own sons and daughters any more, reciting the vedas
correctly, as part of a group reciting ghanam. That is the power of the
pAThas when learnt in the proper manner at a young age, I suppose.
Any and every parsing of the text of the vedas is not accepted by any
school, except maybe yours. Of course, you would probably read in some
principle or the other into every parsing you make and reject parsings
that others make for some flaw or the other.
> > For example, in cases where sandhi
> > does not result in an elongation of the vowel in a vedic hymn, the fact
> > that there is a sandhi there, is known not through the straight
> > padapaTha, but by the breaking up and rearrangement of syllables that
> > occurs in the other pAThas. Thus, there is no scope for any ambiguity in
> > the text. It is the lack of such pATha schemes that opens room for
> > ambiguity in the text of the chAndogya. One of the two readings would
> > have automatically been ruled out, and we would have been *forced* to
> > interpret the sentence and its adjuncts based upon the unique pada
> > reading that is consistent with the other pAThas. One of the two
> > schools, dvaita or advaita, would have never been born then. It is the
>
> This also is questionable, since only Advaita is imperiled by the
> absence of one reading.
>
I should think not. If you can read complete bheda in a sentence, based
on an ambiguous presence of the denying particle "a", don't you think
somebody else would probably read abheda on the same grounds. In any
case, I don't see why Sruti needs to be ambiguous, if its message was
one of eternal bheda. Especially in this particular instance, where the
teacher starts with "sadeva saumya idam agra AsIt, ekamevAdvitIyam." I
don't know how much more explicit Sruti needs to get to affirm
non-duality.
> > > It is worth noting that a recitation paramparaa for a piece of Shruti
> > > does *not* mean that one must have such a paramparaa for the entire
> > > shaakhaa of whatever Veda it is said to come from. For instance, there
> > > are several pieces from the mantra portions of Shruti that are quite
> > > well-carried through oral recitation, but which are considered "khila"
> > > because they are the sole surviving remnants of some now-lost shaakhaa
> > > of their Veda. That the KaTha and other Upanishads are such does not
> > > mean, ipso facto, that they do not have recitation traditions.
> >
> > You are not saying anything much different from what I said earlier. A
>
> [*chomp*]
>
> Yes, I was. What you said before was:
>
> Here we have a case of a specific Sruti paramparA maintaining agency
> - the SAkhA - having died out, but the upanishad itself is accepted
> without question as Sruti.
>
> A shaakhaa is not a "Sruti paramparA maintaining agency." That is what
> I was trying to point out.
>
Again, you are using the word SAkhA in a different sense from what I did
earlier. I clearly pointed out that a SAkhA "dies out" when the human
beings who are the representatives of that SAkhA fail to maintain it for
whatever reason. In that sense, the human agency involved in the
transmission of the SAkhA is what has died out when we say the SAkhA has
died out. The word SAkhA, in this context, refers not to the Sruti
itself, but to the human agents belonging to that SAkhA.
If the "SAkhA", in the sense described above, is not a "Sruti paramparA
maintaining agency", pray enlighten us, what is?
In the context of this discussion, if some respected leader of xyz
religious group claims that an upanishad specific to his school belongs
to some such lost SAkhA, how do you verify or deny his claim? In my
opinion, you can't do either. That is why I said "paramparAbhAvAt" will
take you only so far and no further. Especially if your paramparA is not
mine or his. You have to either prove that the claimed paramparA is
bogus, or that the text in question is kenacit kr.tvA veda ityuktam, or
both. Which is going to be extremely difficult, if not impossible, in
most cases.
> > > As for the jiiva-taaratamya theory, I'm sure you are aware that such
> > > sources as the Taittiriiya Upanishad's second VaLLI support it, and
> > > others like the Chhaandogya Up., and the Bhagavad Gita strongly suggest
> > > it by asserting inherent characteristics to jiivas. Thus, your
> > > interpretation is inconsistent.
> >
> > You don't seriously expect any non-dvaitin to accept this, do you? If we
> > were to agree that the second valli of the taittirIya and the gItA
> > support jIva-tAratamya, in moksha, then we might all as well give up and
> > become followers of one of the swamijis from Udipi. That is not going to
> > happen any time soon, I suppose.
>
> I imagine not. You could try becoming a "follower" of the Vyaasaraaya
> MaTha instead...
>
Thanks, but no thanks. But why, don't the swamis of the vyAsarAya maTh
subscribe to the jIva-tAratamya theory?