/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.13367283]

Where do I start with Shankara and the Advaita tradition?

[Anonymous No.13367360]

First the four Vedas, the principal Upanishads and Bhagavad Gita, then his commentaries

[Anonymous No.13367443]

>>13367283
Shankara's works are some of the best writing on metaphysics that I've ever read but they can be kind of dense and presuppose an extensive knowledge of Sanskrit philosophical terminology by the reader. Because of this, I recommend that people who want to read Shankara's works should begin by reading a a book about Shankara and/or Vedanta. Two examples of these that I thought were particularly good were "The Essential Vedanta" by Deutsch and "Man and His Becoming According to the Vedanta" by Guenon.

After that I would recommend beginning with his Upanishad commentaries. There is a 2-part compilation translated by Gambhirananada containing his commentaries on 8 Upanishads which is good, I'd heavily recommend starting there. His also has separate commentaries on the Chandogya and Brihadaranyaka Upanishads but these are best read after you'd already read his shorter Upanishad commentaries IMO because they are longer and denser. After you have read all or most of his Upanishad commentaries, then you are ready to read his Brahma Sutra and Gita commentaries. Some people may prefer to read the Upanishads first without commentary before reading his commentaries, but I didn't personally find this to be an issue. His non-commentary works can be read alongside his commentaries, although you will be able to understand them better once you'd read at least a few of his commentaries, since he goes into more detail in them than he does in his secondary works.

>>13367360
I don't think reading the Vedas is at all needed to understand or appreciate Shankara writings desu, a major theme of his writing is that the Vedas teach a different path than the Upanishads for people of lower understanding and that the Upanishads effectively contain the higher and true import of the Vedas. You don't need to have read the Vedas to understand why the Upanishads reject ritualism for instance, because Shankara explains why quite clearly in his commentaries.

[Anonymous No.13367448]

>>13367283
You don't. Repent from the Satanic lie that you and the Divine are One when only Jesus (pbuh) has that honor

[Anonymous No.13367574]

>>13367283
Aparokshanubhuti is a concise explanation of Vedanta philosophy, and Shankara wrote it for brainlets and his followers who do not have the time to read thousands of pages of sculpture and commentary. The book including its commentary is pretty short, and you can read it in an afternoon.

[Anonymous No.13367626]

Just read the first 2 chapters of the Bhagavad Gita and get instant liberation, like just attain moksha bro lol

[Anonymous No.13367635]

>>13367443
The two books I mentioned in this post can be found for free online along with most of Shankara's works including all the ones considered to be authentic by academics

https://archive.org/stream/reneguenon/1925%20-%20Man%20and%20His%20Becoming%20according%20to%20the%20Ved%C3%A2nta
https://archive.org/details/EssentialVedanta.TheANewSourceBookOfAdvaitaVedantaSeeAdvaitaVedantaAPhilosophica_201701

>commentaries
http://estudantedavedanta.net/Eight-Upanisads-Vol-1.pdf
http://estudantedavedanta.net/Eight-Upanisads-vol2.pdf
https://archive.org/details/Brihadaranyaka.Upanishad.Shankara.Bhashya.by.Swami.Madhavananda
https://archive.org/details/Shankara.Bhashya-Chandogya.Upanishad-Ganganath.Jha.1942.English
https://archive.org/details/BrahmaSutraSankaraBhashyaEnglishTranslationVasudeoMahadeoApte1960
http://estudantedavedanta.net/Bhagavad-Gita.with.the.Commentary.of.Sri.ShankaracharyaN.pdf

>non-commentary works
https://gita-society.com/pdf2011/vivekachudamani.pdf
http://estudantedavedanta.net/Sri_Shankaracharya-Upadeshasahasri%20-%20Swami%20Jagadananda%20%281949%29%20[Sanskrit-English].pdf
http://estudantedavedanta.net/Sri_Shankaracharya-AtmaBodha%20%28and%20Other%20Stotras%29%20-%20Swami%20Nikhilananda%20%281947%29%20[Sanskrit-English].pdf
http://estudantedavedanta.net/Aparoksha-Anubhuti-by-Sri-Shankaracharya.pdf
http://www.vidyavrikshah.org/SIVANANDALAHARI.pdf
http://www.vidyavrikshah.org/SOUNDARYALAHARI.pdf
http://theheartofthesun.com/Nirvana.pdf
http://jagannathavallabha.com/pdf_engl/prasnottara%20english%20for%20amazon.pdf
https://vivekananda.net/PDFBooks/Others/DrgDrsyaViveka1931.pdf

[Anonymous No.13368098]

bump

[Anonymous No.13368107]

>>13367635
>Vivekananda
Get out

[Anonymous No.13368152]

>>13368107
The text in that link is translated by Nikhilananda, it has nothing to do with Vivekananda

[Anonymous No.13368156]

>>13367283
tongue my anus

[Anonymous No.13368321]

>>13368107
>>13368152
Yeah I was wondering why Nikhilananda's publisher of his upanishads and other books are from Ramakrishna Vivekanada Center.
I know his translations is one of the best though.

[Anonymous No.13368589]

>>13368321
From what I understand Vivekananda came from and had connections to the other Bengal Hindu elite and it was this that helped him form the organization. Even though in his written works he significantly departs from the traditional Advaitic teachings in certain areas; I get the sense that Hindus and Advaitic monks/teachers generally refrain from criticizing him out of respect for how much he help spread and promote Vedanta in the west.

There have been papers written about where Vivekananda and his 'Neovedanta' differ from traditional Vedanta, it's really not that hard to spot once you understand what his ideas were. My experience has been all the translations of stuff published by the Ramakrishna Vivekananda group have been quite good and free of 'neovedanta' ideology, I've compared Gambhirananda's translations of Shankara to others not affiliated with the center and it's basically the same. It's really only Vivekananda's works that contain Neovedanta ideas but most of the stuff published by the center is totally fine.

[Anonymous No.13368688]

>>13367635
>that Guenon
>double page style PDF
a bloo bloo bloo now I have to read it on my tablet instead of my kindle.

really though thank you based advaita bro

[Anonymous No.13368699]

how the FRICK am I supposed to refer to indian philosophers? They have like 80 names per person. I'm pretty sure Adi Shankara isn't even his name, just his title as being "the first Shankara" or something. Most people refer to his divine grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada as "Prabhupada" but why did they choose that part of his name to refer to him? Is it all arbitrary? I know he's a meme and kind of a shyster but with someone like Sri Dharma Pravartaka Acharya what the henk would you call him if you were talking to him?

[Anonymous No.13368851]

[Anonymous No.13369041]

>>13368699
this post made me laugh. don't worry about the minutia anon. i personally am Indian but i find it kind of odious to have to refer to someone as "His Divine Grace" simply because I must, and if I were a spiritual leader such titles would be meaningless to me and i'd never allow anyone to attach them to me. if i were u i'd just use nicknames u feel comfortable with rather than formal titles u can barely write out naturally

[Anonymous No.13369056]

>>13368851
how are abrahamic traditions plagiarisms of zoroastrianism that arose...?

i know parts are plagiarisms of Mesopotamian myths (flood myth) but haven't heard of that

[Anonymous No.13369095]

>>13369056
plagiarism in religion is an idiotic term to use anyways. Each tradition is based on metaphysics which are bound to have similarities and therefor, will use common themes and symbols to portray them. The flood, golden/edenic age, virgin mother, old man creator, end of the world, holy mountain, etc. are all universal symbols that can be more or less found in all religions. To call it plagiarism is to fundamentally misunderstand the genesis of a religion.

[Anonymous No.13369136]

>>13368688

[Anonymous No.13369169]

>>13368851

no disrespect, but i'm surprised this has zero mention of the circumcision haircut that aquinas had

[Anonymous No.13369179]

>>13369056
>>13369095
Part 01/02

Summary of Chapter 7 of Michael Stausberg's Zarathustra and Zoroastrianism. It was actually written by Anders Hultgard.

During the Achaemenid Empire, Cyrus the Great freed Jews from Babylonian captivity, allowing them to practice their religion, and contact between Jews and Persians continued in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. In the Hebrew Bible, Cyrus the Great is referred to as the “Messiah” by Isaiah, making him the only gentile to be praised to such high regards, and other kings such as Darius, Xerxes, and Artaxerxes are frequently mentioned; the books Esther and Daniel, draws significantly from the life at the Persian royal court, and the feast in the Book of Esther, celebrating the liberation of magus Haman’s evil plot, is an adaptation of the Iranian Farvardigan. Palestine was also under Persian rule for two-hundred years and there were large Jewish diaspora in Western Iran and Mesopotamia; the religious ideas of the imperial elite most likely became well-known by the Jews, and the Judaism, being a minority religion without a state to back the authority of the faith, did not arouse much interest in the Persians. Due to the following significant interactions between Persians and Jews, there is substantial reason to believe Zoroastrianism heavily influenced the Judeo-Christian tradition with the dualism between the forces of good and evil, introduction of angels, personified evil figures (e.g., Asmodeus is based off daeva Aēšma), the eschatological reward for the just and punishment for the wicked, the struggle between truth (Av. Asha) and lie (Av. Druj), and the resurrection of the dead (check Yasna 19).

[Anonymous No.13369182]

What is the relationship between Advaita and Hinduism ?

[Anonymous No.13369186]

>>13369179
Part 02/02

The idea of a “Day of Judgment” (Hebrew Yohm Ha Din) can be traced to Zoroastrianism’s ‘Frashokereti’, when fire cleanses the world of all evil or defilement, and the belief of the soul reaching paradise can, likewise, be claimed to originate from the Zoroastrian concept “Chinvat Bridge”; a fragment of Qumran caves describes the Day of Judgment as a “bridge of the abyss”, and analogously, Zoroastrians believed in the hereafter, one will come across the Chinvat Bridge guarded by holy dogs. If the person lived a noble life, the bridge will expand and allow them to reach the end, whereby the yazata Daena shall take them up to Ohrmazd’s “House of Song”, but if they lived ignoble lives, it shall contract as narrow as reed as Daena, now a daeva, will pull them into Ahriman’s “House of Lies”. Moreover, the idea of a savior who will lead the world unto light can be traced to the concept the ‘Saoshyant’. Even the word paradise is based off the Avestan pairi daeza. One final note, considering Islam came from Judeo-Christian tradition, there are many indirect Zoroastrian influences on it; the descriptions of paradise as a flowering garden in the Koran descend from Zoroastrian influence, and several yazatas such as Hordād (Av. Haurvatat) and Amurdād (Av. Amərətāt) appear in the Koran.

[Anonymous No.13369192]

>>13368699
Adi Shankara is his name, Śaṅkarācārya is the honorific title he is given that is also shared with certain other ācāryas (religious teachers) in the Advaita tradition down to the present day. In India some people especially in religious settings may refer to him with such titles as Sri Śaṅkarācārya but in the west especially at a university or something it'd be pretty standard to just call him Adi Shankara

[Anonymous No.13369205]

>>13369182

from my (very) limited understanding, advaita primarily consists of commentaries on the vedas, upanishads, and monistic metaphysical doctrine, as well as some refutations of buddhism and other schools of thought. as far as hinduism goes, thats just a way for the western mind to understand the various indian religions. there is no single god worshiped in hinduism, no common rites, no common anything, so hinduism is too broad of a brush to paint with. in the times where these religions flourished, there wasn't any actual distinction like that, just different paths to the same thing.

[Anonymous No.13369287]

>>13369205
Given that broadness why do the religions or group practices under the category of Hinduism seem so ethno-centric and generally exclusive? (With some notable exemptions like the Hare Krishnas)

[Anonymous No.13369310]

>>13369192
I have seen reference to him as Śaṅkara Bhagavatpāda, Śaṅkara Bhagavatpādācārya.

[Anonymous No.13369321]

>>13369287
Hindus don't see their religion as we do in the West, but more as a their lifestyle. Second, the words Hindu and Hinduism do not exist in Sanskrit. Hindu was a term to refer to the people who lived East of the Indus River. They saw it as their way of life, and they never once thought to subjugate outsiders to their ways, unlike Christianity.

[Anonymous No.13369328]

Wikipedia probably

[Anonymous No.13369359]

>>13368589
thank you for this clarification anon

[Anonymous No.13369439]

>>13369321
Are they correct in viewing it in this lifestyle sense ? What kind of life style would someone not from the subcontinent do who beloved in these teachings?

Have they tried to subjugate other people in India+Pakistan ?

Also sorry for all the questions it’s something that is both interesting and difficult to approach for me.

[Anonymous No.13369539]

>>13369182
It's complicated, but it goes something like this: the Vedas seem to have been composed over the 2,000-1,000 BC range, but we really have no idea how far back they go. The Upanishads were the last layer of texts in the Vedas, and themselves are sort of a culmination of Vedic knowledge and teachings. The earliest Upanishads are pre-Buddhist and date from around the 9th-8th century BC, the primary Upanishads (considered as authoritative scripture) continued to be composed down until around the turn of the millennium. From the early Upanishads springs certainly most of Hindu philosophy and arguably much non-Hindu Indian philosophy as well (there seems to have been a large influence on Jainism and Buddhism). There does not appear to modern scholars however to be clear tradition and consistent history of interpreting the Upanishads in an 'orthodox manner' though during the 1st millenium BC. Samhkya, Mimansa etc and the other main Hindu schools of thought all traced their ideas and authority to the Vedas/Upanishads and claimed to uphold the truth of the scriptures, but none of them succeeding in overthrowing the others for the purpose of obtaining the top position of 'orthodoxy'. In other words there seems (to us in the present era) to have been no widely-agreed upon authoritative interpretation of them back then.

Early Vedanta emerges with the Brahma Sutras (~200 BC) and Gaudapada (~500 CE), there are many other early Vedantins from this era referenced in the works of later people like Shankara but their works have been lost to time. In the 8th century Shankara lived and wrote his famous works and traveled around India spreading his teachings and establishing temples. In his works he basically comes along and says "non-dualism/Advaita is the true meaning of the Upanishads and there has been a tradition of teaching this going all the way back to the sages of the Upanishads themselves"; in his works he strives to show that Advaita is the only fully correct and internally-consistent interpretation of the Upanishads, while simultaneously offering logical refutations of both other Hindu schools (like Samkhya and Mimansa) and non-Hindu sects like Buddhism and Jainism. In this process Shankara synthesized a lot of earlier Hindu thought, for example he accepts certain ideas and teachings from Samhkya and Yoga, but subordinating them to Advaita such that only their teachings that agree with the Advaita interpretation of the Upanishads are accepted as correct and subsumed into Advaita but when these schools seem to differ from the Upanishads Shankara points this out and explains that because of this they can't be the correct interpretation as a whole. Shankara is really the first example we have of someone coming along and offering a very consistent and convincing interpretation of all the main Hindu scriptures, he was very influential and because of this is considered by some to have revived the religion.

[Anonymous No.13369545]

>>13369539
Both Advaita and other schools of Vedanta predate Shankara but he is the first major thinker of any school that emerges whose writings survive. Advaita spread all over India and began to supercede the other schools, gradually becoming the dominant teaching. Around 300 years later Ramanuja and his qualified non-dualism (Vishishtadvaita) emerged and began to contest with Advaita and spreading. Despite Ramanujas attacks against Advaita it's very similar to Shankara's ideas and can be seen as a more devotional and laid-back version of Advaita that's more compatible with householders. Since then Vishishtadvaita and Advaita have generally remained the most popular schools of Vedanta, the other schools have always been more on the fringes and were never as widespread and influential. Like Shankara, Ramanuja promoted Vishishtadvaita as the orthodox interpretation of the Upanishads and commented on and drew from the other schools when they aligned with Vishishtadvaita. Vedanta as a whole eventually began to supercede and overtake the other schools in popularity; it seems Hindus as a whole generally accepted that the Vedanta (of whatever school) interpretation of the Upanishads was correct and viewed them as more central to the religion. Sects that don't base themselves in Vedanta still survive and flourish but since the early medieval era down to the present day Vedanta has been way more influential than any other school of Hindu thought.

There are numerous positions that some people and scholars have on Advaita, I find some of it to be just posturing and typical academic BS. You have to understand that because Shankara is one of the oldest, most influential and most widely respected Hindu thinkers that he acts as a lightning-rod for people who want to 'deconstruct' Hinduism. IMO the same urge that drives academics to try to criticize 'traditional narratives' and the same urge that causes some leftists to want to undermine traditional things simply for being traditional causes people of all stripes to want to find some reason to object to him or the idea that he was important; a lot of it is incoherent. Some of it is no doubt a reaction against the modernist excesses of 'Neovedanta' but much of it is just silly. For example you'll find online and in some books people will try to claim "Lol there is no consistent theme to the Upanishads and every Vedanta schools is EQUALLY a valid interpretation of them, say otherwise and you're shilling Neovedanta/traditionalism", but then they have no response to the fact that many scholars from the early orientalists like Deuessen onwards have written that Shankara's interpretation appears to be the most consistent, and they have no response to the many many Upanishad quotes which directly say things like "He is the inner Self of all beings" - Muṇḍaka Upanishad 2.1.4 or the many ones that censure multiplicity. At the end of the day Advaita remains one of the central currents of Hindu thought.

[Anonymous No.13369814]

>>13369056
From a history book I've read it was said that the Jews most likely received certain ideas from the Persians. These ideas included
>Heaven, or Paradise (even the word Paradise is ultimately derived from a Persian word which meant "walled garden")
>Hell
>Day of Judgment
>Satan taking on attributes similar to the Persian Angra Mainyu and becoming an adversarial figure to God rather than an angel working under Him but antagonistic to mankind
The first three the book said are "Aryan" ideas that through the Persians were integrated into the Semitic faith of the Jews.
Book was "The Complete History of the World" by J.M. Roberts.

[Anonymous No.13370115]

>>13369539
>>13369545
I appreciate those posts what are you referring to by neovedanta?

[Anonymous No.13370122]

>>13369179
>>13369186
the avesta wasn't written until sassanian times

[Anonymous No.13370131]

>>13367283
>Where do I start with dinduism
At your local meth dealer.

[Anonymous No.13370135]

>>13369179
>>13369186
Does he write about how Zoroastrian texts are virtually non existent pre Christianity and the oldest transcripts are from centuries after it?
Makes you think who ripped off who.

[Anonymous No.13370151]

>>13370131
>>>/pol/

[Anonymous No.13370158]

>>13369287
Because they're full of shit.
They leech off of every religion they can scrub themselves into, then bitch and moan about their supposed profound theology which is just convoluted nonsesne.
Press any hindu about what he really believes in and he'll shit himself trying to do olympic level mental gymnastics, then call you a fag who don't understand shit when you see through their crap.

[Anonymous No.13370368]

>>13370115
It means a lot of stuff and has become sort of a catch-all term for a lot of related things but generally refers to a form of modernist or a certain ideological take on vedanta that developed in 19th century India that was influenced by both western thought and later medieval-era Indian thinkers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-Vedanta

[Anonymous No.13370386]

>>13370158
have sex

[Anonymous No.13370673]

>>13367283
>literally one guy
>literally one work
Where d-do I sta-start?

[Anonymous No.13370699]

>>13370673
He wrote many texts, not just one work, and there are also many dozens of Advaita texts not by him.

[Anonymous No.13371534]

bump

[Anonymous No.13371653]

>>13367283
you don’t. /thread

[Anonymous No.13371660]

>>13371534
stop bumping your own shizz, guenon/sankara-fag. this is not a platform for initiation of gullible kids into your cult

[Anonymous No.13371779]

>>13370699
Oh yeah? Name twelve

[Anonymous No.13371802]

>>13371779
Not sure if you meant his works or the ones not by him but I can do both.

His commentaries on the Brihadaranyaka, Chandogya, Aitareya, Taittiriya, Kena, Isha, Katha, Mundaka, Prasna and the Mandukya Upanishads are accepted as authentic by scholars along with his commentaries on the Brahma Sutras and the Bhagavad-Gita. That's twelve.

For one's not by him you have the Yoga Vasistha, Ashtavakra Gita, Ribhu Gita, Avadhuta Gita, Tripura Rahasya, Dasbodh, Pancadasi, Vedantasara, Jivanmukti-Viveka, Vedanta Paribhasa, Advaita Bodha Deepika and the Kaivalya Navaneeta; also twelve.

[Anonymous No.13371887]

>>13370122 >>13370135
The Gathas, based on heavy linguistic analysis of its Old Avestan, came from 1000-1500 BCE. It's the only portion of the Zend-Avesta that goes back to Zarathustra. There is a lot of research on this matter.

[Anonymous No.13371918]

>>13371887
Can you post some links to this research? I'm curious to read it myself as I've seen a lot of people dispute the chronology. It's okay if it's behind a paywall I can use scihub

[Anonymous No.13372223]

>>13371918
The Old Avestan of the Gathas is closely related to the Vedic languages, and it is drastically different from the Younger Avestan of the rest of the Zend-Avesta. Most of the disputes are in regards to Zarathustra's exact date, ranging from 1500 to 800 BCE, but the majority of scholars would agree Zarathustra either orated or wrote the Gathas around 1000 BCE, somewhere in Eastern Iran called "Khorasan". The Sassanian Zoroastrian mobed migrated from Eastern Greater Iran, like Sogdia and Bactria, which historically was the hub of Zoroastrianism. Technically speaking, the original Zoroastrians were not Persians, but Persians did adopt it.

[Anonymous No.13372260]

>>13371887
How much of the Gathas has survived? I've heard that a lot of the Zoroastrian writings have unfortunately been lost.

[Anonymous No.13372267]

>>13371918
The Old Avestan of the Gathas is closely related to the Vedic languages, and it is drastically different from the Younger Avestan present in the rest of the Zend-Avesta. Most of the disputes are in regards to Zarathustra's exact date of bith, ranging from 1500 to 800 BCE, but the majority of scholars would agree Zarathustra either orated or wrote the Gathas somewhere in Eastern Iran called "Khorasan". The Sassanian Zoroastrian mobed migrated from Khorasan, like Sogdia and Bactria, which historically was the hub of Zoroastrianism. Technically speaking, the original Zoroastrians were not Persians, but Persians did adopt it.

[Anonymous No.13372286]

>>13372260
I recommend both Mary Boyce and Piloo Nanavutty's translations of the Gathas: "The 17 hymns of the Gathas consist of 238 stanzas, of about 1300 lines or 6000 words in total."

[Anonymous No.13372564]

>>13371887
>heavy linguistic analysis of its Old Avestan
quote from richard frye.
>"Certain features of the language of the Gathas and the Younger Avesta as well are more archaic than corresponding features in Vedic Sanskrit (25), but this, of course, does not mean that the Gathas are therefore older in time than the Rig Veda, since as a parallel in Altaic
>heavy linguistic analysis o
languages, modern Mongolian in many features is "more archaic" than the oldest Turkish, and Arabic is in the same relation to Hebrew."

[Anonymous No.13372621]

>>13372564
Richard Frye's research is outdated. I recommend Richard Foltz instead. You can even email him. Zarathustra's date of birth is typically estimated to be somewhere around 800 to 1500 BCE based on the Gathas.

[Anonymous No.13373021]

do you know of any good books that have monk sotries in them similar to the buddhist version of "zen flesh zen bones" anecdotal stories and such, i know alot of stories with buuddhism are shared and mixed around but wondering if you knew of any

[Anonymous No.13373394]

>>13367283
Is there anyway to reconcile Advaita with Buddhism? What do I do if I agree with aspects of both, and want to practise Buddhism without adopting its doctrine entirely? Because they both seem to have very profound insights in them.

[Anonymous No.13373682]

bump

[Anonymous No.13373735]

>>13367443

>a major theme of his writing is that the Vedas teach a different path than the Upanishads for people of lower understanding and that the Upanishads effectively contain the higher and true import of the Vedas. You don't need to have read the Vedas to understand why the Upanishads reject ritualism for instance, because Shankara explains why quite clearly in his commentaries.

How do hindus reconcile the same collection of writings going "do this" ( Samhitas, Brahmanas, and Aranyakas ) and "don't do this" ( the Upanishads ) at the same time?

BTW is there a guide like this for Ramanuja and Madhva as well? They don't seem to be nearly as popular as Shankara.

[Anonymous No.13373912]

>>13372621
while I don't completely doubt you there is still no concensus on it.

[Anonymous No.13373951]

>>13373912
*consensus

[Anonymous No.13375035]

>>13373394
Jonang Buddhism seems to be the best reconciliation of them from what I've seen. You can read about the ideas of one of its key thinkers here on his wiki page

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolpopa_Sherab_Gyaltsen

>In line with the Buddha-nature teachings and the prevalent Yogacara-Madhyamaka synthesis, Dölpopa interpreted śūnyatā as twofold, distinguishing the conventional "emptiness of self-nature" (rangtong), and the ultimate "emptiness of other" (shentong), which is the clear nature of mind. Dölpopa taught that emptiness of self-nature applied only to relative truth, while emptiness of other is characteristic of ultimate truth, i.e. ultimate Reality is not empty of its own uncreated and deathless Truth, but only of what is impermanent and illusory.[10]

>Dölpopa employed the term 'Self' or 'Soul' (atman) to refer to the ultimate truth, that, according to him, lay at the heart of all being. In his Mountain Doctrine work, he refers to this essence as the "Great Self", "True Self", "Diamond Self", "Supreme Self", "Solid Self" and "Supreme Self of all Creatures", basing himself on specific utterances and doctrines of the Buddha in the Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra, the Aṅgulimālīya Sūtra and the Śrīmālādevī Siṃhanāda Sūtra, amongst others[11] While most of his peers balk at such a term, there are still exponents of the Nyingma and Kagyu schools who are happy to see the heart of all beings as one unified, egoless Buddha-self.

The magnum opus work of Dolpopa, "The Mountain Doctrine" has been translated in its entirety to English by the respected Tibetologist Jeffrey Hopkins, you can order it on amazon and it's on lib-gen too.

[Anonymous No.13375507]

>>13373394

How about you reconcile Buddhism with Catholicism and Advaita with Christianity instead?

[Anonymous No.13375641]

>>13373394>>13375035

>What do I do if I agree with aspects of both,
yous top being a retard. you cannot claim karma comes from contact and karma does not come from contact

[Anonymous No.13375670]

dalai lama trolls as usual, normies are upset.

>In a new interview, the Dalai Lama said Trump lacks moral principle, refugees should ultimately return to their homeland, and any future female Dalai Lama should be attractive.

https://www.lionsroar.com/dalai-lama-stirs-controversy-with-comments-about-trump-refugees-and-a-female-successor/

[Anonymous No.13375684]

>>13373682
but shankara is always in a state of perpetual bliss

[Anonymous No.13375766]

>>13375507
Not him, but can you lend me insight on why Christians generally consider the trinity as dogma. If God is an eternal unity, what is the point of having two other equivalent divine beings, who appear to me as unnecessary?

[Anonymous No.13376107]

>>13375766
>what is the point of having two other equivalent divine beings
They aren't other equivalent beings. They're all three God, the same God, run by the same divine will revealing itself, as far as we know, in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Hinduism and Buddhism tell you you're part of God too, but that just kills your own individuality, which is supremely ironic.
Christianity preaches you are what you are, you're you how God made you, but you aren't God yourself. You have free will to follow God or perish by your own imagination of being a god.

[Anonymous No.13376115]

>>13376107
>You have free will to follow God or perish by your own imagination of being a god.

Unless you're a Calvinist.

[Anonymous No.13376120]

>>13375766

Positive Monism, that is to say the Monad is not the Monad in the Numerical sense, by being exempt from there being something else, the Monad is the Monad despite there being something else. The Monad neither become not the Monad by there being an other, nor is the other not the Monad, it is likewise A Monad itself, not only simultaneously coinciding and distinguishing itself from THE Monad precisely by being a Monad, but even true distinction as such is exclusively per the Monad.

[Anonymous No.13376152]

>>13376115
We all make mistakes.
Unless you're hindu.
Then you can just pay back in spirit loans.

[Anonymous No.13376390]

>>13375641
>yous top being a retard. you cannot claim karma comes from contact and karma does not come from contact
Can you elaborate? As far as I understand it Buddhism and Vedanta both regard karma as arising in connection with desire and teach the abandonment/transcendence of desire

[Anonymous No.13376400]

>>13367360
>>13367443
Reminder Bibek Debroy recently released excellent translated Ramayana and Bhagavata Purana in 3-volume sets.

Up on libgen as well

[Anonymous No.13376476]

>>13373735
>How do hindus reconcile the same collection of writings going "do this" ( Samhitas, Brahmanas, and Aranyakas ) and "don't do this" ( the Upanishads ) at the same time?
In Shankara's works he reconciles this by taking the position that the scriptures teach different paths to men according to their varying tendencies and according to their level of understanding or spiritual attainment. That for people who take multiplicity for granted and who are concerned with the attainment of results such as obtaining a wife, son, cows etc the Vedas teach rituals and observances to be followed for attaining those results, but that for people who are done with samsara, who seek to understand the meaning of it all and who seek the highest aim that the scriptures teach another, higher path. He mentions in support of this that the Upanishads generally describe moksha in the highest terms, with descriptions of it found in the Upanishads that say things like "the knower of Brahman attains the highest/supreme" etc, there are all these descriptions in the Upanishads where they describe moksha as the final and supreme aim of man; whereas the results attained from rituals are never described by the Vedas in the same way. The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad also makes the distinction between liberation and the northern and southern paths that people follow who don't attain liberation. The Mundaka Upanishad further says that people who only practice rituals don't understand the highest.
>BTW is there a guide like this for Ramanuja and Madhva as well?
There wrote commentaries on much of the same texts that have been translated that you can read if you are interested in their ideas. Ramanuja did not write any commentaries on the Upanishads but instead he wrote a text called the Vedantha Sangraha that summarizes his position on what the Upanishads teach, although he also wrote commentaries on the Brahma Sutras and Gita

[Anonymous No.13376549]

>Yajnavalkya had two wives: Maitreyi and Katyayani. Of these, Maitreyi was conversant with the Knowledge of Brahman, while Katyayani had an essentially feminine outlook.

-Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 4.5.1.

[Anonymous No.13376574]

>>13375507
Why would anyone want to do that?

[Anonymous No.13376837]

Has anyone seen the on Shankara, directed by G.V. Iyer, done entirely in Sanskrit?

[Anonymous No.13376904]

>>13376837
Anywhere I can watch it with the subtitles? All the full streams on youtube seems to be without subtitles.

[Anonymous No.13376918]

>>13376904
its on tpb

[Anonymous No.13376956]

>>13375507
Because I'm trying to liberate myself from Samsara anon, not remain under it. Reincarnation/migration has a decent body of evidence in favor of it, which you can look up online in the form of Ian Stevenson and Jim B Tucker's work, who connected many children's reports of a past-life memory to a previously deceased body that fit their descriptions, and also had wounds corresponding to their present birthmarks (science doesn't understand why birthmarks form, and the way they do) alongside books by Carol Bowman where she catalogues accounts of children's past-life memories in detail.

In other words, even though Christians imagine they'll be spending eternity with God after this brief lifetime, it's far more likely you'll be...well...in another lifetime.

If you want to break this cycle, I recommend you follow the path which Buddha has laid out for us. It's silly to imagine that you might not have been Christian in just your last life, or will be in your next one, and yet you presently believe it wholeheartedly and think the rest of eternity will correspond to your beliefs in it for an 80-year-period.

Regardless, I wish you well on the path you choose.