Guest guest Posted April 11, 2004 Report Share Posted April 11, 2004 Namaste Shri Stig-ji, > My answer: Of course, you are perfectly free to follow your > instinct if you like. Personally I think the ascribed authorship > of religious and philosophical texts would be best defended or > refuted by rational argumentation rather than emotional > outbursts. Rationality derives from deductive and inductive logic. Deductive logic is tautological - it needs nothing other than the proposition and the laws of pure logic (or laws of thought operations) for its conclusions, and its conclusions are in effect different forms of the same propositional expressions (tautologies). Inductive logic is synthetic and brings into the conclusion something that was not given in the premise, or something that cannot be derived from the premises as a tautological form of the initial expression. A plausible conclusion derived from inductive reasoning needs to be grounded by an empirical observation. This is the scientific method. (The scientific method actually combines both induction - its speculative hypothesis - and deduction - its mathematical operations). Now, I do not see that the derived authorship of the Viveka Chudamani is rational by any means. The arguments for its ascribed authorship is inductive - it relies on some variations in the texts, which in itself is neither a proof or a rationally conclusive argument without an empirical grounding of the conclusion. Such empirical validation could be the discovery of a copy of the text with a different authorship. In the absence of such empirical validation, it remains a fiction derived from the levitating power of imaginative thought. No, the conclusion for a different authorship of Viveka Chudamani is NOT rational. It is merely a plausible thing - a possibility. The Viveka Chudamani is a text that points to Truth. The ultimate Truth. Are we saying that its opening and closing lines are false? Are we saying that what it comprises are the words of an imposter? How can we seek to know Truth by following the words of a liar? I am sorry if I sound harsh, but modern scholarship itself is often harsh to truth. Regards, Chittaranjan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted April 11, 2004 Report Share Posted April 11, 2004 Namaste Shri Stig-ji, A small correction to my last post: Please read the last line as "I am sorry if I sound harsh, but I can't help it when I see that modern scholarship itself is often harsh to truth." instead of "I am sorry if I sound harsh, but modern scholarship itself is often harsh to truth." Regards, Chittaranjan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted April 11, 2004 Report Share Posted April 11, 2004 Namaste Shri Chittaranjan-ji, (By the way, thanks a lot for your kind and encouraging words about my postings on the "Why a commentary"-issue!) > > Rationality derives from deductive and inductive logic. You are of course perfectly right here! I used the word "rational" in a more everyday fashion, meaning "reasonable", "intellectual", "sensible" or the like. I should have known better, being a historian of Western philosophy and ideas by profession... So, I was not referring to the scientific outlook of Descartes, Spinoza or Leibniz! Warmest regards Stig Lundgren Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted April 11, 2004 Report Share Posted April 11, 2004 Namaste Sri Chittaranjan-ji, > > "I am sorry if I sound harsh, but I can't help it when I see that > modern scholarship itself is often harsh to truth." > I agree. There are certainly many weird things claimed by modern scholarship. By the way, I am afraid that some of you might consider me a typical Western scholar trying to put my knife into the heart of tradition. But I can assure you, nothing could be farther from truth. In fact, I have myself learnt Vedanta from strictly traditional exponents of Advaita Vedanta (both from books and from sampradayavits). I am regularly visiting the local Tamil temple here in Stockholm. I have undergone necessary initiations from traditional pundits and I perform sandhyavandanam and Shiva panchayatana puja daily. I try to the best of my ability to live my life in a traditional Hindu way. My guru in ritual matters is a pandit belonging to the Sringeri lineage (he was very close to the former Shankaracarya, H. H. Abhinava Vidyatirtha Swamigal). I do not say this in order to "show of" or anything. But I think the time has come to point out, that I am not any of those exclusively scholarly-minded people without love and respect for the Hindu tradition. Warmest regards Stig Lundgren (a.k.a. Shivashankar) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted April 11, 2004 Report Share Posted April 11, 2004 Namaste Sri Chittaranjan, Thanks for your kind mail! > > BTW, I am happy to learn of your interest in History. Historiography > is a subject that has interested me immensely in recent years. Maybe > we can discuss (on this list sometime) about how history would appear > if constructed from an Advaitic metaphysic as the unfoldment of > Consciousness. That would be an interesting topic. I have myself done some research earlier on the metaphysical outlook on history among some Swedish 19th century idealistic thinkers. Those thinkers did held similar standpoints to advaita in several respects. For instance, they claimed that the empirical world within time and space is only a world of phenomena: The only existing reality is God, but due to our unability to recognice God as he really is, we wrongly mistakes reality to be this empirical world in time and space. This standpoint, I would claim, is close to the Vedantic teachings on superimposition and avidya. However, there are no indications that these Swedish thinkers actually knew anything about Shankara and Advaita. On the other hand, during the 19th century the interest in India and Indian religion was much prevalent among German scholars, and many Swedish scholars was influenced by the German way of thinking and learning. Are you familiar with Eric Voegelin? Of course, > Voegelin is rooted to the Graeco-Judeo-Christian tradition, but his > philosophy of history is interesting (though not entirely agreeable). > Yes I am. Actually, one of my friends recently edited and translated one of Voegelin´s books into Swedish. I agree he is a great and very interesting thinker. But I don´t approve of his theory that the gnostic outlook is the seed of secularization. On the contrary, I think the christian blind faith-attitude is to blame for much of the anti-religious attitude so common and prevalent in the modern West. I am afraid I have transformed this discussion into something very much off-topic! Warmest regards Stig Lundgren Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted April 11, 2004 Report Share Posted April 11, 2004 Namaste Shri Stig-ji, I want to say so much more on this topic, but I'll resist the temptation so that the discussion may not stray far far away from the topic of the month. Maybe later some day. Thank you. Warm regards, Chittaranjan advaitin, "Stig Lundgren" <slu@b...> wrote: > Namaste Sri Chittaranjan, > > That would be an interesting topic. I have myself done some > research earlier on the metaphysical outlook on history among > some Swedish 19th century idealistic thinkers. Those thinkers did > held similar standpoints to advaita in several respects. For > instance, they claimed that the empirical world within time and > space is only a world of phenomena: The only existing reality is > God, but due to our unability to recognice God as he really is, > we wrongly mistakes reality to be this empirical world in time > and space. This standpoint, I would claim, is close to the > Vedantic teachings on superimposition and avidya. However, there > are no indications that these Swedish thinkers actually knew > anything about Shankara and Advaita. On the other hand, during > the 19th century the interest in India and Indian religion was > much prevalent among German scholars, and many Swedish scholars > was influenced by the German way of thinking and learning. > > > > Are you familiar with Eric Voegelin? Of course, Voegelin > > is rooted to the Graeco-Judeo-Christian tradition, but > > his philosophy of history is interesting (though not > > entirely agreeable). > > > Yes I am. Actually, one of my friends recently edited and > translated one of Voegelin´s books into Swedish. I agree he is a > great and very interesting thinker. But I don´t approve of his > theory that the gnostic outlook is the seed of secularization. On > the contrary, I think the christian blind faith-attitude is to > blame for much of the anti-religious attitude so common and > prevalent in the modern West. > > I am afraid I have transformed this discussion into something > very much off-topic! > > Warmest regards > Stig Lundgren Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted April 11, 2004 Report Share Posted April 11, 2004 Dear Stigji: We already know that even without your saying so. Every word that you write is permeated by your sincerity and love for Advaita as taught by Shankra. Love to all Harsha _____ Stig Lundgren [slu] Sunday, April 11, 2004 7:17 AM advaitin Re: Re: Authorship of Viveka chudamani! By the way, I am afraid that some of you might consider me a typical Western scholar trying to put my knife into the heart of tradition. But I can assure you, nothing could be farther from truth. In fact, I have myself learnt Vedanta from strictly traditional exponents of Advaita Vedanta (both from books and from sampradayavits). I am regularly visiting the local Tamil temple here in Stockholm. I have undergone necessary initiations from traditional pundits and I perform sandhyavandanam and Shiva panchayatana puja daily. I try to the best of my ability to live my life in a traditional Hindu way. My guru in ritual matters is a pandit belonging to the Sringeri lineage (he was very close to the former Shankaracarya, H. H. Abhinava Vidyatirtha Swamigal). I do not say this in order to "show of" or anything. But I think the time has come to point out, that I am not any of those exclusively scholarly-minded people without love and respect for the Hindu tradition. Warmest regards Stig Lundgren (a.k.a. Shivashankar) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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