Post-Samkara Dialectics of the Advaita Vedanta

Language: EnglishPages: 308About the BookAn attempt has been made to give a systematic presentation of post-Samkara dialectics of the Advaita- Vedanta. The main object of the dialectics as developed by the Neo- Vedantic teachers is to carry thought to perfection by a critical examination of the concepts and categories of the opposing sister schools.The present volume comprises eight chapters bearing mainly on the epistemology of post-Samkara thought. Of eight chapters, the first three deal with the nature and validity of knowledge and the next five are concerned mainly with an explanation of appearance and its implication from the standpoint of epistemology. In the first chapter, nature of knowledge has been examined and analysed so as to bring out the problems involved therein. The second chapter deals with the important and unique Indian conception of self-luminosity of know- ledge-the problem of self-luminosity being studied from two sides The third chapter is concerned with the validity of knowledge, and deals mainly with the formidable arguments of the Navya-Nyaya school as represented by Gangesa in his . Tauva-cinuimani and discusses how the Mtmamsa and Vedanta schools refute the neo-Iogicians by their own dialectic. In the fourth chapter, Sriharsa's famous dialectic in the refutation of the Nyaya- vaisesika categories has been studied while the fifth and sixth chapters deal with Madhu- sudana's refutation of Vyasaraja's arguments against the Vedantic conception of the universe as unreal.PrefaceIn these pages an attempt has been made to give a systematic presentation of post-Samkara dialectics of the Advaita- Vedanta. The work is substantially based upon my thesis approved for the Degree of Doctorate in Philosophy by the Calc