Brahma Sutra; Shankara Bhashya; Pt5

[Guest guest]

Namaste Shyam-ji and interested Advaitins,

The section under consideration by you is

surely one of the most frequently commented on. It has both the merit

and the danger of great compression. Merit because the anatomy of the

argument is easily contained in the mind but dangerous for the ease of

misinterpretation. Of course there is nothing new in the problem as set

out by him, many thinkers have been absorbed by the same set of connected

problems. Let me put them in a way which teazes out the central issues

and gets away from the rote learned responses.

 

Suppose in my travels I encounter a chest which is painted red. Is the

knowledge I have of this object or to put it another way, my consciousness

of it, boxy and red coloured or do I have in my mind a boxiness and

redness that is expressed by the concept box (chest) and red. What is the

shape of this vritti/mental modification and what is the colour of it.

What are we to make of the idea that they i.e. boxness and redness,

arrive one at a time as separate modifications? (cf. pg. 28 trans V.P.)

Can I have the surface of the box as a modification without having red

modification or vice versa? Is this all happening in real time? Where

is there room for these phenomena?

 

Finally before the questions spread out in ever widening circles - is the

knowledge here as a mental modification OF the red chest or is it THE red

chest. Which is Sankara saying with his adhyasa analogy? What actually

is the Vedantin understanding of analogy?

[Guest guest]

Dear Michael-ji

 

Pranams.

Thank you for your valuable comments and questions.

My apologies for the late response.

 

I am in the process of adding my next series on the

adhyAsa bhashya - which begins with koham ahyAsanameti

- what is this adhyAsa - in which we deal with the

different schools of thought regarding cognition and

knowledge as contrasted with advaita/vedanta as

regards to the source of the error - some of these

points will be covered there shortly.

 

I also await your own views on the very interesting

questions you have raised.

 

Hari OM

Shyam

 

--- ombhurbhuva <ombhurbhuva wrote:

 

>

> Namaste Shyam-ji and interested Advaitins,

> is the

> knowledge here as a mental modification OF the red

> chest or is it THE red

> chest. Which is Sankara saying with his adhyasa

> analogy? What actually

> is the Vedantin understanding of analogy?

>

> ---

>

>