Regarding the Upanishads.- Conflicting logic of tenured Indologists.

[Vishal Agarwal]

----Original Message Follows----
From: Vidyasankar Sundaresan <vsundaresan at HOTMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: Regarding the Upanishads.- Conflicting logic of tenured
      Indologists.
Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2000 09:09:43 PST

Vishal Agarwal <vishalagarwal at HOTMAIL.COM> wrote:

>esteemed Indologists often make blunders. For an Eg. A. B Keith, in the
>introduction of his translation of the Aitreya Aranyaka conjectures that
>Purnaprajna Anandatirtha and Anandagiri were ONE and the same person who
>first wrote an Advaita exposition of the Upanishads and then a Dvaita

VS: Keith said that? Note that Max Weber (The Religion of India) blithely
identifies Madhva with Vidyaranya (usually identified as Madhava).
VA2: Yes, I possess my own copy of the work. In fact, in a Hindi journal
'Vedavani', there was a series of articles which gave 100's of instances of
specific blunders of Indologists, with references and quotations. The author
of the series was Pandit Shivashankar Kavyateertha. And then, there are
Hindi translations of the Brhaddevata, Aitreya Brahmana, Samkhayana Brahmana
etc., which make negative remarks against the earlier English translations
of MacDonnel, Keith etc.
_____________________
>VA: The view of the Swami is not new, it is definitely not post Vivekanda.
>I
VS:There is a key difference between the avirodha of gau.dapaada and the
"anything goes" purveyors of modern spirituality movements. The former says,

VA2: True. Note that my initial comment was based on the words 'Post
Vivekanand..." While the Swami also said a number of different things at
different times, he did state (evident from so many publications of RK
Mission) that the Dvaita and Visishtadvaita eventually got 'subsumed' in
Advaita, while acknowledging that there were indeed differences between the
Buddhist philosophy for instance, and Vedanta. This is similar in spirit to
what Sri Gaudacharya said. And also to the scheme of things in the system of
Vijnana Bhikshu wherein the Samkhya, Yoga, Vaiseshika all had their on place
within the super-structure of Vedanta. So, the original statement of Dr.
Deshpande is untenable (unless I misconstrued it). While I myself do not try
to force fit different Darshanas into one organic structure, nevertheless, I
do acknowledge that such a tendency is not new in India. Even the
Sarvadarshana Samgraha arranges the different Darshanas in a particular
order with a particular view in mind. So also the Sarvasiddhanta Samgraha.
Anyway, I have hardly come across a believer in the Dvaita or the
Visishtadvaita Vedanta who makes such statements of the organic unity of
divergent systems of thought.

And personally, I have very little patience with the Gandhian ( or whatever
name one would like to give it) tendency to equate different religions as
different sides of the same crystal. This view is promoted by the Indian
Govt. and the Secularist scholars vigorously to help communal harmony in
India, as I understand.
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