Ashok, thanks for the encouraging words. While I can contribute to the discussion, and steer it, I must admit I have not moderated discussions. Inorder to initiate a discussion on Vedanta, I would start with PANCHADASI of Swami Vidyaranya. Admabodha, Tathvabodha, Dashashloki, Vivekachudamani, and Avadutha Geetha are excellent texts that provide a strong foundation to the discussion.
Following the traditional methods, I shall try and post the "norms" of discussion - taking it from NYAYA. This will not only provide a decorum for a healthy arguement (tharka), but also provide a means to identify bad elements of discussion (like ku-tharkam, jalpa, chalam etc.)
Secondly, we shall also have to set up a framework of *acceptable* pramanas. I feel that a healthy discussion on Vedanta would be possible if and only if Vedas - i.e. Shruthi (Upanishads) and Smruthi (Bhagavat Geetha) and the Brahma Sutras are taken to be Pramanas.
Ashok/Kaushal, do you think Vedanta needs a thread of it's own, or would it be appropriate to continue on this thread?
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->I am posting below an excerpt from Panchadasi.
<b>Panchadasi : Analysis of Self</b>
The world consists of objects, and every object is a content of positive or negative perception and cognition. The special feature of each object is that it is distinguished from the other by characteristics that are ingrained in it in a particular manner. This is why we see the world variegated in colours, sounds, tastes, touches, and smells. The difference is in the existence somewhere of some characteristics outside the range of others at other places. Thus, for example, we mark a difference between a cow and a tree, because we do not find in a cow the features of a tree, and those of a cow in a tree. Objects manifest a mutual exclusion of one another. It is this that enables us to know the multitudinousness that the world is.
We also conceive such difference as that between God and the individual, God and the world, one individual and another, the individual and the world, in addition to the differences among the various contents of the world. There is a difference of limbs in the body. There is difference among individuals of the same species as also individuals of different species. There is external and internal variety. We may here raise a question as to what it is that knows that there is difference, and how is difference known at all? We have an immediate answer that a kind of consciousness in us is the knower of the different objects outside as also inside, and this difference is also known by consciousness itself. The world can be known by nothing other than consciousness. Though the objects differ in their external features, we do not find any difference among the various types of consciousness. There is distinction of sounds, colours, etc., but there is no distinction between the consciousness of sound and the consciousness of colour, and so on. This, then, means that the knowing consciousness is one and the same, though things are multifarious and possess changing characters. One and the same consciousness sees, hears, tastes, touches and smells, and it is also possible to be conscious of the consciousness of all these. Consciousness is a synthetic unity of apperception, it is all at once. Though the eyes cannot hear and ears cannot see, etc., and each sense has one particular function to perform, consciousness is the unity of them all. It is one and indivisible, and it is responsible for all the experiences in the world.
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Following the traditional methods, I shall try and post the "norms" of discussion - taking it from NYAYA. This will not only provide a decorum for a healthy arguement (tharka), but also provide a means to identify bad elements of discussion (like ku-tharkam, jalpa, chalam etc.)
Secondly, we shall also have to set up a framework of *acceptable* pramanas. I feel that a healthy discussion on Vedanta would be possible if and only if Vedas - i.e. Shruthi (Upanishads) and Smruthi (Bhagavat Geetha) and the Brahma Sutras are taken to be Pramanas.
Ashok/Kaushal, do you think Vedanta needs a thread of it's own, or would it be appropriate to continue on this thread?
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->I am posting below an excerpt from Panchadasi.
<b>Panchadasi : Analysis of Self</b>
The world consists of objects, and every object is a content of positive or negative perception and cognition. The special feature of each object is that it is distinguished from the other by characteristics that are ingrained in it in a particular manner. This is why we see the world variegated in colours, sounds, tastes, touches, and smells. The difference is in the existence somewhere of some characteristics outside the range of others at other places. Thus, for example, we mark a difference between a cow and a tree, because we do not find in a cow the features of a tree, and those of a cow in a tree. Objects manifest a mutual exclusion of one another. It is this that enables us to know the multitudinousness that the world is.
We also conceive such difference as that between God and the individual, God and the world, one individual and another, the individual and the world, in addition to the differences among the various contents of the world. There is a difference of limbs in the body. There is difference among individuals of the same species as also individuals of different species. There is external and internal variety. We may here raise a question as to what it is that knows that there is difference, and how is difference known at all? We have an immediate answer that a kind of consciousness in us is the knower of the different objects outside as also inside, and this difference is also known by consciousness itself. The world can be known by nothing other than consciousness. Though the objects differ in their external features, we do not find any difference among the various types of consciousness. There is distinction of sounds, colours, etc., but there is no distinction between the consciousness of sound and the consciousness of colour, and so on. This, then, means that the knowing consciousness is one and the same, though things are multifarious and possess changing characters. One and the same consciousness sees, hears, tastes, touches and smells, and it is also possible to be conscious of the consciousness of all these. Consciousness is a synthetic unity of apperception, it is all at once. Though the eyes cannot hear and ears cannot see, etc., and each sense has one particular function to perform, consciousness is the unity of them all. It is one and indivisible, and it is responsible for all the experiences in the world.
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