Advaita-Chandran

[nanda chandran]

Srisha Rao writes :
>I don't think you understand;
>Dr. Hebbar's point was that Buddhism had*already disappeared* by the
time of Shankara's advent (or
>coming of age),and that thus he had nothing to do with the same. This
of course is notconnected to
>whether his view was logically consistent or otherwise; thematter is
decidable merely based on historical
>esearch, and more than onescholar has concluded on the basis of such
that Buddhism was eithercompletely
 >gone, or otherwise on its last legs and destined to lapse, bythe time
Shankara came around. If you disagree
>, then the proper thing todo would be to do a deconstructive analysis
of the historical research which has
>gone into providing this conclusion, and to suggest or prove a
different one. Merely asserting the beauty
>or otherwise of Shankara'ssystem does not provide a satisfactory
answer.=20> >

AFAIK, Buddhism existed in BhArath nearly till 1000 AD. There’s
historical evidence of the
philosophical development of  the Madhyamaka and the YogAcAra till that
time.

Shankara is supposed to have existed in the 6th century AD. Historically
he’s also supposed to have
been a contemporary of KumArilla Bhatta. And since the latter is
notorious for his crusade against the
Bauddhas, it makes no sense to say Buddhism was already dead by the time
of Shankara. And nearly
four centuries after KumArilla we have Madhyamaka works heavily
criticizing the Karma MimAmsa.

Actually what I mentioned above is the common view of historians and
philosophers (Das Gupta, Radhakrishnan, TRV Murti, Vidhyabhusan etc). So
I’d request
You to furnish references for your claims.

And with regard to the rest of your questions on Advaitam, please first
answer the question of the Buddha which I’d posted on the original mail
:

The whole universe that we know is a system of relations : we know
nothing that is or can be
unrelated. How can that which depends on nothing and is related to
nothing produce things which are
related to one another and depend for their existence upon one another?

If you answer this, I would indeed be convinced of the logical basis of
our further arguments. If not,
there’s no point in carrying this any further.


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