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neither a report of actual arguments with opposing schools, nor is it primarily a manual for use in argument with those schools. Its accounts reveal both a commitment to a true and efficacious knowledgesuch as endures no contradictionsand the recognition that this account, including its disposal of contradictory views, affirms the faith of those who are already Advaitins. UMS II.2 suggests that its apologetics are intended to confirm a truth already acquired, not to persuade or convert outsiderseven if the stray outsider might convert on the basis of UMS II.2. One does not find in UMS II.2 the point of encounter between Advaita and the world outside its Text, but rather a further step in the inscription of that world into the Text.
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b. The Refutation of Samkhya in UMS II.2.1-10 and the Scriptural Reasoning of Advaita |
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The encompassment of reason and its arguments by upanisadic faith in the course of the refutation of Samkhya in UMS II.2.1-10 illustrates concisely the general project of UMS II.2; the adhikarana amply illustrates that the debates with ''outsiders" occur entirely according to the premises of the "insiders"' position, and do not indicate a qualitatively different, less upanisadic moment within the Text. |
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The general critique of the Samkhyan material source (pradhana) proceeds along the lines we have already seen in UMS I.1.5-11, where the material source is shown to be inconsistent with the data of the upanisads, and UMS II.1.1-11, where it is shown to have no advantages over the scripturally confirmed Advaita viewpoint. Here the inquiry advances by moving from the question of the cause-effect inference to the question of the claims required for the possibility of purposeful activity. |
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The attack is thorough: i. the unconscious is never seen to transform itself, especially in the highly complex fashion which would be required to account for the world, except if guided by some conscious agent (UMS II.2.1-2);71 ii. natural processes must depend on some intelligently perceived finality (UMS II.2.3,5); iii. the material source and its three constituents (gunas) either never begin to interact, or never cease to interact (UMS II.2.4,6- |
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