Was Srila Sridhara Swami an Advaitin ?



Here, taking a lookg at Srila Sridhara Swami's commentary on the chatuh-shloki to understand his philosophy. The chatuh shloki summarizes the Bhagavatam's philosophy. So it would be a good place to start with to understand Srila Sridhara Swami's philosophy. 

Srimad Bhagavatam 2.9.32(33)

 अहमेवासमेवाग्रे नान्यद् यत् सदसत् परम् ।

पश्चादहं यदेतच्च योऽवशिष्येत सोऽस्म्यहम् ॥ ३३ ॥


Srila Sridhara Swami: 

etad eva samyag upadiśan yāvān ity asyārthaṁ sphuṭayati—aham iti 

In the previous verse Sri Krishna very well instructs that by My grace let you understand tattva (the truth - My nature). Thus this truth manifests as follows in this verse. 

| aham evāgre : sṛṣṭeḥ pūrvam (Before creation)

āsaṁ sthitaḥ ( existed/situated) 

 nānyat kiñcit ( nothing else) 

, yat sat sthūlam ( gross)

 asat sūkṣmaṁ  (subtle)

 paraṁ tayoḥ kāraṇaṁ pradhānam, tasyāpy antarmukhatayā tadā mayy eva līnatvāt | ahaṁ ca tadā āsam eva kevalaṁ na cānyad akaravam ( Both material cause and matter merge into Me only, and then only I exist nothing else by my desire ) 

paścāt sṛṣṭer anantaram apy aham evāsmi ( Even after creation also only I exist ) 

yad etad viśvaṁ tad apy aham asmi  ( I am only the Universe as well)

pralaye yo’vaśiṣyeta so’py aham eva | anena cānādy-anantatvād advitīyatvāc ca paripūrṇo’ham ity uktaṁ bhavati  

( After pralaya of the universe what is left is also only Me, from this it is understood, that without Only  I have no beginning in time, am Infinite and no one like Me and thus am complete. )

We can see that Srila Sridhara Swami says the Parabrahma Sri Krishna is the universe as well, this contradicts the Advaita positiont that the universe is mithya. 


( To be continued.....) 


PS: Source of Picture of Srila Sridhara Swami is Hari Parshada Das Prabhu of ISKCON. 









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