[Advaita-l] Sringeri AchAryas on the vivaraNa - the cause of adhyAsa (3)

[Anand Hudli]

prem_d_p at yahoo.co.in  wrote:

>It seems to me that mere absence of jnana would lead to   the negation of 
>the Seer. This is >inadmissible as it  leads to a pure materialistic 
>essence for the Universe.  Consciousness being what >it is, a Seer has to 
>be and has  to see. Hence adhyasa. Jnanam is Truth is Existence.

Ignorance or ajnAna in the sense that Chitsukha describes it is the 
ignorance associated with the validity of knowledge. This is a little hard 
to understand and so examples will help. Suppose we are told something about 
an object but we do not know if what we know about the object is true. 
Another example is that we assume the Self is a doer, experiencer, has a 
body, etc. but we do not know if what we assume is valid. In these examples, 
there is no lack of knowledge (nobody says the Self is not known in any 
sense at all)  but we are ignorant of the validity (or otherwise) of what we 
know.

>I am not clear about the last sentence above. Is it that  inference by 
>induction is impossible >because this is not  observable

It only amounts to a denial of nonsublatability to ajnAna, although it is 
beginningless.

>Also it seems to me that the difference from  non-existence of bhava-rupa 
>is possible only if
>pragabhavam is also realized to be different from kevala  abhavam. Am I 
>right here?

I do not see the how the difference between pragabhAva and atyanta-abhAva 
can be brought up here.

>Also avidya is anAdi but may  be ended and hence sublatable (?).

Yes.

>This ‘Darkness’, how does it relate to Avyakta and the  Triguna nature of 
>Prakriti?

PrakR^iti and this Darkness are the same. There is no explicit mention of 
the three guNas in the nAsadIya sUkta. But since PrakR^iti is said to have 
these three guNas, we can infer accordingly.


>Who is the Seer of this ‘Darkness’? Is this primordial  ‘Darkness’ realized 
>as ‘Mithya’ by its Seer
>or is it that  ‘Darkness’ is non-different from ‘Mithya’?

The Seer is PrajApati ParameShThI, presumably BrahmA himself. If we take the 
Creator to be God (Ishvara), He can never be deluded like us humans. As 
Creator He knows the creation is only an apparent transformation of Brahman.

Anand

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