Re: Material Cause of the Universe
Let me use this thread to explain a vAkyam which was unfortunately being used in the jalpa forums to bandy about a wrong understanding of shruti. It is highly relevant to the topic of the thread, so I prefer to explain it here.
"ekam sat vipra bahudha vadanti"
Due to people like Vivekananda, the meaning is given as "Truth is One, but sages call it by various names" and such. This is a wrong interpretation by any framework of vedAntA.
"Ekam Sath" refers to the sath vidyA of the chAndogya, ie, "SadEva soumyam idamagrAsIt, ekamEva advitIyam". Sath is described in the vidyA as the cause of the universe. "Ekam" establishes that this Sath alone is the efficient, material and instrumental cause of the universe, without a second.
The rest of the vAkyA "vipra bahuda vadanti" refers to the fact that the universe composed of gross forms is actually the effect of the cause that is sath, ie, the sath has transformed into the variegated universe of names and forms.
In the Vishishtadvaitic parlance, it means that the sath, which had the sukshma jagath and jivAs as its body, has transformed into sath, which had sthula jivAs and jagath as its body. It is referred to by many names and forms, which are the jivAs and jagath, and thus, "vipra bahuda vadanti" is nothing but "tat tvam asi", ie, the Brahman within sukshma forms is the same as the Brahman within sthula forms like Svetaketu.
Whatever the case, Advaita or VA, material causality is the intended meaning of the vAkya.
Last edited by Sri Vaishnava; 12 May 2013 at 08:48 AM.
[CENTER][COLOR="Black"][COLOR="Red"][COLOR="DarkRed"]No holiness rules over my freedom
No commands from above I obey
I seek the ruin, I shake the worlds
Behold! I am blackest ov the black
Ov khaos I am, the disobediant one
Depraved son who hath dwelt in nothingness
Upon the ninth I fell, from grace up above
To taste this life ov sin, to give birth to the "I"[/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR]
[B]~ "Blackest Ov the Black" - Behemoth.[/B]
[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3P-JdwtK1DY[/url] [/CENTER]
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