Date of Udhayana

[nanda chandran]

>*I* don't have to do anything; *you* have to provide evidence, by which I
>mean
>solid textual work, a) for why the questions you raised are actually worth
>investigating and b) for why the claims you advance are reasonable. I can
>point
>you to several publications that might assist you in this query, but that's
>all
>I can do. You're threading on ground that research has not yet sufficiently
>covered, so either you do research yourself, or you revise your claims in
>order
>to factor in the uncertainty regarding whether or not Udayana reacted to
>JJAnazrI in NKus. Unless you do one of these things, I agree that "all this
>is
>quite unnecessary", and unless you have any further *specific* evidence to
>come
>up with, I for my part consider this thread closed.

My argument was basically this :
1. There has been a long history of argument for and against a creator God
in Indian philosophy.
2. Just before Shankara, KumArilla Bhatta had argued so vigorously against a
creator God. And it is significant that Shankara accepts a creator God on
the strength of the shruti as it can neither be proved nor denied using
logic.
3. All the VedAntins after Shankara also toe the same line.

So it is in this context that I asked whether Udhayana's arguments on this
case is suited to its time.

For you to argue against it you must have produced some evidence either to
show that the argument was still alive even after Shankara or some other
evidence to show Udhayana lived after Shankara. But apart
from a vague reference to JnAnashrimitra, whose arguments you were not
familiar with, you brought out no other constructive contribution to the
discussion. Instead you simply denied the validity of my argument and also
ridiculed me of having little knowledge of Udhayana.

Contrary to your claim that I'm extending a thesis, if you go through my
posts, it can be clearly seen that I've only questions. But it is your
denial of the base of my questions, which is in its own way, a thesis. So
the point is not that I should do research (which incidentally is what my
questions might lead to), but that if you do not have enough knowledge to
argue with, you should not butt into the discussion. Or atleast refrain from
making unreasonable accusations.

With regards to Vidhya's response, he has an axe to grind and it is obvious
at the end of his message.

Atleast Birgitte pointed out JnAnishrimitra, but Vidhya has nothing but
forceful words against my questions. He ignores all the arguments that I
point out and says I have no case at all! The logical development of
Indian philosophy and the philsophical environs that I pointed out are
dismissed as "environs bogey"!

According to him the passage of time has no effect on any system of
thought. Almost all systems in Indian philsophy have changed with the
passage of time. They might stick on to some fundementals, but quite
a few of the concepts propounded by the school undergoes change with
the development of philsophical understanding. In somecases, even the
fundemetals undergo drastic change, which sometimes gives rise to new
schools.

For instance early SAmkhya was non-theistic pluralism. But we can see
efforts by GaudapAda to reduce the plurality of souls to one single
soul. Also VijnAnabhikshu makes theism a vital part of the system and
replaces the original SAmkhyan ideal of liberation by knowledge
with bhakti.

Such changes can be seen in almost all systems.

It would be naive to think that PrashatapAda is only repeating KanAda's
arguments or VAtsyAyana - Gautama's. They have their own contributions to
make which in somecases contradicts the earlier tradition of their own
school. Even in Advaita, Shankara doesn't accept GaudapAda's equation of the
waking state with the dream state and takes care to criticize it. He gives
different arguments for proving the unreality of the world, which has its
own implications on the system.

Actually one can go to the extent of saying that the philosophical
development of a school depended on the philosophical development of
rival schools. Most schools were quite in tune with the philosophical
development of rival schools in their time. It is primarily in answer to the
criticisms of their school's doctrines either from external or internal
sources that philosophers corrected or modified and hence developed their
schools doctrines.

It is in this sense that I felt that since the most of the philosophical
schools had realized the difficulty in trying to prove the existence of
Ishvara by logic, the NyAya too which would have abandoned the issue and
turned its attention towards other issues.

Apparently they didn't and Shrisha has provided the necessary evidence
to prove so. That's fine.

But all this has no meaning for Vidhya, for his concentration is firmly
upon the KAnchi/Shringeri rivalry. He either thinks that I'm trying to
undermine the current dating of Shankara or that I'm trying to prove
Chandrasekhara Saraswati's statement that Udhayana lived before Shankara.
While I've my own doubts regarding those issues, that was hardly my
intention in this thread. As I have explained, it is only the development of
Indian philosophy which gave rise to my questions.

A few months back when somebody wrote about the spiritual unity underlying
Indian philosophy and quoted GaudapAda, it was Vidhya who opposed it. And on
this thread itself he has criticized me for entertaining a notion of "one
Indian philosophy". When I point out that authors of rival schools argued
one against one another and also learnt from one another and that's the way
Indian philosophy developed, he simply says that I'm only repeating his own
words and points to his URL on GaudapAda!

According to him Advaita was influenced "heavily" by NyAya. When I
question the basis of this, with a reference to an earlier discussion,
he's quick to divert the attention to the earlier discussion and fails
to give any evidence of the "heavy" influence of NyAya on Advaita. Fine,
we need not continue the discussion on the relation between Buddhism and
Advaita here, but how about supporting with evidence your claim that
Advaita was "heavily" influenced by NyAya?


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