[Advaita-l] Fwd: Advaita Siddhi series 007 - prathama mithyAtva vichAra: (part 2)

Venkatraghavan S agnimile at gmail.com
Sat Sep 16 10:53:03 EDT 2017


Namaste Sri Ravi Kiran ji,


> 2) The two properties of the absence of existence and the absence of
> non-existence, or
>

when you say properties (dharma) here, //
सत्त्वात्यन्ताभावासत्त्वात्यन्ताभावरूपम्
धर्मद्वयं
it means the property as mentioned in the below example ?

//A defining characteristic of the class ‘cow’ (gotva) is the property
‘having dewlap’ (sAsnAvat)


By dharmas, the nyAyAmritakAra means attributes, guNas. It may or may not
be the defining characteristic of the class.


Here, vyApya and vyApakam refer to nyAya terms ?
>

vyApyam - nyuna desa vRtti   (prithvitvam)

vyApakam - adhika desa vRtti  (dravyatvam)


Yes, these are nyAya terms, but used across shAstra, including advaita. Put
simply, in the vyApti A implies B, A is vyApya, B is vyApaka. When the
vyApti is expressed as an anumAna, this will be - B's presence can be
inferred, because A is present. Here, A is hetu and B is sAdhya. Thus,
vyApya = hetu, vyApaka = sAdhya. The vyApya is a subset of vyApaka. Thus
wherever vyApya/hetu is, vyApaka/sAdhaka will also be present. However the
reverse is not necessarily true. This is why vyApya is nyUna deSa vritti
(covers fewer instances) and vyApaka is adhika deSa vritti (covers vyApya
and some more).


अत एव न द्वितीयोऽपि, सत्त्वाभाववति शुक्तिरूप्ये विवक्षितासत्त्वव्यतिरेकस्य
> विद्यमानत्वेन व्यभिचारात्, The second option is also not possible. In the
> case of shell-silver, the absence of sat does not imply the presence of
> asat, as the shell-silver is available for appearance. The rule of the
> nyAyAmritakAra was that if sat was absent, asat must be present. In the
> shell-silver,
>

***

> the hetu of this rule present, but the sAdhya of this rule is
> not.

****

Unable to follow above statement ???:

The nyAyAmritakAra had said that  an entity that is sadasat vilakshaNam is
an impossibility, because where sat is not there, asat must be there, and
where asat is not there, sat must be there. He had argued that there can be
no such thing which is sat vilakshaNa and asat vilakshaNa.

The siddhikAra had said that for the nyAyAmritakAra's statement to hold
good, there were three ways this could be possible. In the second of the
three ways, he takes the case where the absence of one implies the presence
of the other.

That is, the absence of sat (hetu) implies the presence of asat (sAdhya).

The shell silver is sublated. Thus it is not sat. In other words, the hetu
is present. It is also seen in the shell. Thus it cannot be asat.
Therefore, the sAdhya is absent. If the hetu is present but the sAdhya is
absent, it is a vyabhichAra.

Interesting...

// even if the presence of sat implies the absence of asat (and vice versa)

which means,

even if we agree to the definitions of dvaitin for sat and asat, in the
above rule ?
( and not insisting on the definitions provided by siddhikAra )


Even according to our definitions, the presence of sat implies the absence
of asat and vice versa. Brahman is sat, where there is no asat. Hare's horn
is asat, which is not sat even remotely However that in itself does not
mean that mithyA, in which both sat is absent and asat is absent, is an
impossibility.


For example,  different animals
> of the same species are called "cow" on the basis of the anugata dharma,
> common attribute of cowness (gotva).
>

sAmAnyam?

This is what the naiyyAyika calls jAti /sAmAnya, but that is not a concept
we accept, for reasons that will be outlined later in the siddhi.



> If one knows what a cow looks like,
> the next time one sees an animal of the species


gotva jAti ?

One can only see an individual, never the jAti. What I meant was that the
next time one sees a cow, one immediately knows it is a cow, which is
different from the case of two people called Devadatta.

Regards,
Venkatraghavan


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