/lit/ - Literature

Śrīkaṇṭha, the first Śaiva commentator on the Brahmasūtras challenges some of the basic concepts of Advaita Vedānta and refutes the interpretations of the concept of Advaita offered by Śaṃkara and his followers. The Śaivasiddhānta based mainly on the revealed canonical texts, called Āgama, which has been a very influential religiophilosophical system since the early part of the first millennium is avowedly dualistic and some of its early teachers that lived in Kashmir between the 8th and 10th centuries CE have vehemently refuted the concept of Advaita held by mainstream Advaita Vedānta tradition as untenable and as going against logic. They point out some such inherent logical fallacies, namely, if Brahman alone is held to be real and unique then the means of such a cognition, namely, the Vedas, that speak of Brahman and only through which one comes to know about Brahman (as for example, the Upaniṣadic passage that states: taṃ tvaupaniṣadaṃ puruṣaṃ pṛcchāmi) and which is accepted as the highest pramāṇa, will have to be held to be unreal by the adherents of Advaita Vedānta. We could also notice that long before Rāmānuja (circa 12th century) aimed his criticism against the basic concepts of Advaita Vedānta, it was the great ācāryas of the Śaivasiddhānta system such as Sadyojyoti, Nārāyaṇakaṇṭha, his son Rāmakaṇṭha and others (circa 8-10th centiry) that lived in Kashmir, who were the pioneers in criticizing some of the basic tenets of the Advaita Vedānta .