Bhartṛprapañca and the Eight States of Brahman

A gradual evolution of Brahman in eight successive states is described and criticized in Śaṅkara’s commentary on Bṛhadāraṇyaka-Upaniṣad and in Sureśvara’s and Ānandagiri’s sub-commentaries where the teaching is attributed to Bhartṛprapañca, an ancient Bhedābhedavādin whose commentary on BĀU is now l...

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Autores:
Andrijanić, Ivan
Tipo de recurso:
Article of journal
Fecha de publicación:
2016
Institución:
Universidad de San Buenaventura
Repositorio:
Repositorio USB
Idioma:
spa
OAI Identifier:
oai:bibliotecadigital.usb.edu.co:10819/26096
Acceso en línea:
https://hdl.handle.net/10819/26096
https://doi.org/10.21500/22563202.2306
Palabra clave:
Bhedābheda
Bhartṛprapañca
Dvaita
Vedānta
monism
illusionism
Rights
openAccess
License
http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_abf2
Description
Summary:A gradual evolution of Brahman in eight successive states is described and criticized in Śaṅkara’s commentary on Bṛhadāraṇyaka-Upaniṣad and in Sureśvara’s and Ānandagiri’s sub-commentaries where the teaching is attributed to Bhartṛprapañca, an ancient Bhedābhedavādin whose commentary on BĀU is now lost. This paper examines fragmentary records of the teaching of Brahman’s evolution and tries to interpret different categories mentioned in different accounts of the teaching by comparing these terms with same or similar categories in other philosophical and religious systems of ancient India in order to understand Bhartṛprapañca’s original eight-fold scheme and its meaning. Tentative conclusion might be that Ānandagiri conveyed Bhartṛprapañca’s scheme literally while Śaṅkara and Sureśvara paraphrased it very freely.