/lit/ - Literature

>>17467516
>Indeed both Śāntarakṣita and Kamalaśīla are refuting almost the same view that Sankaràcàrya postulates although neither Śāntarakṣita nor Kamalaśīla mentions his name or his work
In Kamalashila's commentary on the Santaraksita's Tattvasangraha translated into English it pic related, at the very beginning the commentary describes the doctrine being attacked as the view of the Advaita, not of the Parinamavadin non-Advaita Vedantins. If you would like to read how, this post here explains how Santaraksita and Kamalasila misunderstood Advaita and failed to refute it in that text.

>>/lit/thread/S16894953#p16904797

>There is, however, a slight difference between this Upanishadic view refuted here by Śāntarakṣita and Sankaràcàrya’s Upanishadic view. Sankara’s view is called Maya-Vivartavàd – i.e. the illusionist. The view refuted by Śāntarakṣita is called parinàmavàda - modificationist.
The different parinamavadin Vedantin schools each give an analysis of consciousness that is different from Advaita's as well as that of each other's. I would agree with whoever wrote that paragraph that the position of Advaita and that of Shentong doctrine as found in Dolpopa's works are highly similar if not practically identical.

>>16903864
>https://archive.org/details/TattvasangrahaVol1

Śāntarakṣita and Kamalaśila seem to not know what they are talking about at all when it comes to Advaita

When they write:

>The error in the view of these philosophers is a slight one- due only to the assertion of eternality (of cognition); as diversity is clearly perceived in the cognitions of colour, sound and other things. - if all these cognitions were one, then, color, sound, taste and other things would be cognizable all at once; as in an eternal entity there can be no different states.
They are making the mistake of confusing the Atman (which is devoid of qualities like color, sound etc and which consists of sentience or witnessing consciousness) with the objects of sentience like sensory perceptions. In other words they are say "an eternal consciousness would consist of consciousness of X-object, but being eternal this could never change"; but this misses the whole point since it is the sentience which is merely associated with exterior changes which is eternal and not the transient sensations which are manifested to and withdrawn from the light of that sentience. The Atman is eternal and unchanging, it has no different states; every distinguishing feature or quality in consciousness which you can point to is observed by consciousness itself and is not actually consciousness but is an insentient thing being observed by your sentience.

The commentator after this verse demonstrates that he has this misunderstanding when he writes:

>It may be held that "the cognition of sound and other things are always different 'states' of it appearing one after the other- so that the apprehension of sound etc could not be simultaneous. The answer to this is- in an eternal entity there can be no different 'states'; because the 'states' are not different from the Entity to which they belong; so that the entity to which the states belong would be liable to production and destruction, -appearance and disappearance- in the same way as the states are liable; or, conversly, the states would be eternal like the entity to which they belong
Things exterior to sentience, which are manifested to sentience, are not states of sentience. That's is like regarding the objects which you can see around you in the world such as a computer, chair or table as being "states" of the sentient entity which is yourself, i.e. it makes no sense