Shankaracharya

[Anonymous No.18948843]

What was his opinion about other schools of hinduism? What was his opinion about Tantrism?

[Anonymous No.18948847]

I would be careful about reading Advaita Vedanta interpretations such as Shankara's as a commentary to the Upanishads, they are extremely reliant on Buddhist philosophy (Shankara is called a "cryptobuddhist" by most Hindus, and most scholars agree). If you want to read the Upanishads, work through them with editions and commentaries that aren't sectarian, or at least read an interpretation that is closer to the original meaning of the Upanishads, rather than Shankara's 9th century AD quasi-buddhism.

[Anonymous No.18949158]

>>18948843
Bump. Waiting for guenon guy

[Anonymous No.18949398]

[Anonymous No.18949405]

>>18949398
kek

[Anonymous No.18949621]

>>18948843
>What was his opinion about other schools of hinduism?
In his opinion, the earlier schools of Hinduism were all incomplete in some way, although some of them were partially right about certain things or used certain valid methods of textual interpretation. He viewed the Advaita school as effectively superseding the former schools, while at the same time retaining what the former schools had gotten right, although this doesn't necessarily mean taking ideas directly from those schools, because for example when those schools base certain teachings on the Upanishads, like the Purusha-Prakriti and guna-related cosmology of Samkhya, Advaita and other Vedanta schools more or less take the attitude of "we accept that these ideas are taught by the Upanishads, and this other school got at least this much right but like them we are taking this notion directly from the Upanishads".

Here is a brief overview of his response to each school, in addition to what's noted below, all these different schools have different conceptions of the Self (Atman), which at one point or another come up and are refuted in Shankara's writings.

Mimansa - Shankara adopts some of their methods of Vedic exegesis in interpreting the Upanishads, but at the same time he attacks their view that the purpose of the Vedas is to enjoin action alone, for example Shankara points out how the Mimansa theory that all Vedic sentences which don't enjoin action lack any authority is absurd by pointing out that it cancels out the prohibitions against killing Brahmins since that's not an injunction to action.

Nyaya - Shankara accepts certain Nyaya principles concerning reasoning and debate but he rejects the metaphysical conclusions of the school concerning the ultimate reality of multiplicity.

Samkhya-Yoga - Shankara takes Samkhya as the main opponent in his works and he strives to show that their teachings are illogical and that they are not supported by the Upanishadic texts as the Samkhya maintain. There is a quite a good amount in Samkhya metaphysics that Advaita agrees with, although these are notions that are already clearly taught in the Upanishads, like that the purusha is the unaffected, transcendent, inner-most consciousness. In his Brahma Sutra Bhasya Shankara writes "and in refuting Samkhya we have refuted the Yoga school as well" since their metaphysics is just Samkhya with slight modifications.

Vaisheshika - Shankara attacks their materialism as logically/philosophically untenable, as well as some of the finer points of their metaphysics concerning how they conceptualize inherence/qualities

[Anonymous No.18949625]

>>18949621

Other Vedanta - No other Vedanta schools had really formalized into distinct schools by Shankara's time, although he criticizes certain other early- or quasi-Vedantic commentators on the Upanishads and Brahma Sutras, these earlier commentaries are all lost to time I believe. The views of the earlier commentaries he strives to refute resemble those of the later Bhedabheda Vedanta.

>What was his opinion about Tantrism?
It's complicated, there are works attributed to Shankara which are effectively manuals for tantric worship, like Saundarya Lahari, and there is also a commentary on the Lalita Sahasranama attributed to him called the Sri Lalita Trisata Bhasya, western academics tend to disregard these works as non-authentic while Indians more often consider them authentic. Shankara doesn't write anything pro-Tantric in his main works of undisputed authenticity like his prasthanatrayi commentaries

If Shankara did accept Tantrism, it would only have been as an ancillary means of spiritual realization, like meditation, for Shankara was uncompromising when it comes to the absolute truth. He would have rejected the notion that the Tantric view of the ultimate metaphysical truth was at once true alongside Advaita, but it would not have been out of character for Shankara to accept Tantric worship as being provisionally acceptable for people who were not taking up sannyasin but who still wanted to practice spirituality or who wanted a relationship with God, just like Shankara also accepted bhakti-yoga and karma-yoga as being appropriate for these people, even though they are not appropriate for the sannyasin.

In his Brahma Sutra Bhasya, Shankara interprets the Sutras as criticizing the Shaivist Agamas for promoting the view that God is merely the superintendent of the universe, i.e. only the efficient cause of the universe and not both the material and efficient cause as Shankara holds the Sutras teach about Brahman. The 16th-century Shaivist and Advaitin Appayya Dīkṣita wrote in his works that there are two types of Shaivist Agamas, the higher Shaivist Agamas which agree with the Vedas and Advaita and which teach that God is both the material and efficient cause, and on the other hand the lower Shaivist Agamas which are anti-Vedic, which teach God is the mere superintendent, and which are meant for women and the lower castes. In Appayya Dīkṣita's view the Brahma Sutra portion discussing the Shaivist Agamas is only attacking the anti-Vedic lower Shaivist Agamas and not the higher pro-Vedic Shaivist Agamas teaching that God is both the material and efficient cause.

[Anonymous No.18949943]

>>18949625
ok...