The Fundamentals of Vedanta

[Nitaidas]

The Fundamentals of Vedanta: Vedantic Texts for Beginners. This work contains the Vedanta-sara of Sadananda Yogindra and the Prameya-rantavali of Baladeva Vidyabhusana. These are two texts that are meant for "initiating" beginners into the study of Vedanta from two important Vedantic perspectives: Advaita and BhedAbheda (Caitanyite). It is the first of four projected volumes that will raise, like a series of steps, those interested in learning to an intermediate level competency in Vedanta, one of India's foremost philosophical/religious traditions. The first volume can be viewed and purchased from the link below.

Here.

[subala]

My copy arrived yesterday from Amazon, and I have just started reading it. Wow! What a wonderful book!

How are the other volumes progressing? When when they be published?

[Nitaidas]

Oct 22, 2010 2:16:59 GMT -6 subala said:

My copy arrived yesterday from Amazon, and I have just started reading it. Wow! What a wonderful book!

How are the other volumes progressing? When when they be published?

Thanks for the kind words. The next volume will contain the Vedanta-paribhasa of Dharmaraja Adhvarindra and Baladeva's Siddhanta-ratna. Both have been started but they are far from completion. A lot more typing of text is needed and then the translation and typesetting which I generally do at the same time. I will look at the files and see if I can post some of them. Both texts are magisterial representations of their respective Vedanta traditions.

[subala]

I finished my first reading of this book and my head hurts! Lol..My head hasn't hurt this much since studying quantum physics...

[Nitaidas]

Nov 9, 2010 2:42:22 GMT -6 subala said:

I finished my first reading of this book and my head hurts! Lol..My head hasn't hurt this much since studying quantum physics...

I hope it was a case of "it hurts so good." If not, I'm sorry, subalaji. I did a very literal translation of the Advaita text in that book. I wanted a Sanskrit student to be able to look back and forth between the English and the Sanskrit and see how they are related. Perhaps a looser, more idiomatic translation would have been better. My wife is always criticizing me for writing Sanskritic English and does her best to break up some of the long, complex sentences I often come up with when I am translating. Anyway, I hope you found something of worth in the reading.

[subala]

Lol...it's a case of "it hurts so good". I can only imagine what the other volumes in this series will do to my brain.

I'll reread the book again at a much slower pace and ask you questions, as they arise, about the texts.

[Nitaidas]

Nov 10, 2010 4:00:14 GMT -6 subala said:

Lol...it's a case of "it hurts so good". I can only imagine what the other volumes in this series will do to my brain.

I'll reread the book again at a much slower pace and ask you questions, as they arise, about the texts.

Vedanta is a complex subject. The Vedanta-sara does a wonderful job of combining and organizing the various Advaita subtraditions. With its three main commentaries it may be all one needs to get a firm grip on the non-dualist tradition. Still, there is the mountain of the Vedanta-paribhasa standing behind it . That text introduces the Navya-nyaya way of analysis to the Advaitic tradition. That is what makes it so good. The author of that text was more active as a writer on Nyaya than on Vedanta, but only his Vedanta text has been published.

Anyway, feel free to ask questions. If I do have an answer I have tons of commentaries on those texts that may have answers.

[fiorafemere]

I tried reading this book but it is way beyond me. Seems like I would need a teacher present in front of me in order to understand anything. Other thing is that there are so many notes at the bottom of each page which slows down the reading and a flow.

[vkaul1]

I haven't read this book yet, but I am about to order it.
I don't seem fascinated BV because of his leanings with the madhva tradition. Can you comment on the influence of madhva on his writing and polemic style?

[Nitaidas]

Apr 22, 2011 19:40:45 GMT -6 vkaul1 said:

I haven't read this book yet, but I am about to order it.
I don't seem fascinated BV because of his leanings with the madhva tradition. Can you comment on the influence of madhva on his writing and polemic style?

I don't think we should be too hard on BV. I believe that there were many extenuating circumstances that forced him to appeal to the Madhva tradition as he did. That is not to say that some of his reasons for taking Madhva philosophy or terminology more seriously than CV philosophy were not personal choices or preferences. Still, I think one can learn a great deal from him and even get a better sense of why Sri Jiva made the choices he did when he was trying to give CV theology a solid foundation. I discuss much of this in my introduction to this book.

BV needed to establish the authenticity of the tradition so that Govindaji would not be taken away from the service of the members of the tradition. To claim that it was a new tradition founded by Mahaprabhu would never have worked. He had to connect it to an older tradition that already had credibility in the eyes of the inquisitors. That was the Madhva tradition. He had studied that tradition when he was younger before he was converted to CV by Radhadamodara Goswami. It was a natural choice. He concocted up the so-called guru-parampara connecting Mahaprabhu with the Madhva tradition and had it inserted in books already in existence (Gaura-ganoddesa-dipika) and used it in his own books (Prameya-ratnavali, Govinda-bhasya).

Sri Jiva's view is that Mahaprabhu started his own sampradaya that was different from all the previous or contemporary sampradayas. This would have been hard or impossible to defend before a committee of sadhus who did not accept Mahaprabhu as the avatara of Krsna. This is the correct way of viewing the sampradaya, I think. Madhavendra Puri was really in the Dasanami tradition which traces itself back to Sankara. By the time of Puri, bhakti had grown in stature and importance, but the tradition was still an Advaitic tradition. Perhaps because of this (and of course Bhagavatra 1.2.11) Sri Jiva finds an important place in the tradition for Brahman realization. See his momentous definition of Brahman in the Bhagavat-sandarbha. So instead of trying to establish CV as its own sampradaya one could have tried to make it out to be in the Advaitic lineage from Sankara but that would have gone over like a lead balloon, too. Thus, I think BV made the right choice. We in reading him need to make the right choices in understanding which of his claims are really germane to CV and which are there to appease the inquisitors. He did study all the works of the Gosvamis with his guru and Sri Visvanatha Cakravartin. We can learn a great deal from him (but again, sigh, will it do us any good?).

[vkaul1]

Thanks again for your insights. Another thing, if Sankara did not believe in vivartavada, what would be the problem in aligning with him instead of Madhva?

Now the question is how Madhavendra puri is portrayed in CC as a devotee with conception of madhuraya rasa. I am not sure how the CC works, not giving any arguments between tattva vadis and CM and saying he defeated them. Similarly easy defeat of the buddhists and mass conversions in Kashi and south India. Where are those converts now? I don't know how to view these inaccurate facts.

Another thing, according to scholar Brahma V Purana is a very crude text that pales in comparison to Bh Purana in every way and for that matter it is not even as sophisticated as the Devi Bhagavatam. Looks like the version the Goswamis had is different from the current Gaudiya version chandan goswami is using? What is your view on this book and its centrality to CV? Thanks again.