ADVAITA-L Digest - help locating source

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

Ramakrishnan wrote:

> This reminds me of the statement in the gauDapaada kaarikaa, "what is unreal
 in
> the beginning and at the end, cannot have any reality in the middle". So jagan
> mithyaa _is_ in reality jagan mithyaa also. Or am I missing something here?

The answer to this is related to the reason why Sankara's authorship of the
vivekacUDAmaNi is doubted by some.

The prime concern of philosophy is to explain how one knows what one claims ot
know. Sankara, in the brahmasUtra bhAshya, accepts the pUrva mImAm.sA theory
of knowledge - svata: pramANa, parata: apramANa. All knowledge is *valid* in
and of itself, unless contradicted by other knowledge. Thus, for the ordinary
one, the perception of the universe is what gives him his notions of the
universe, and he has no choice but to assume that the jagat is real. It is
only the one who has realized the unitive knowledge of brahman who can say
jagan mithyA. Till that happens, the knowledge of the universe is not sublated.

Later advaitins also draw a distinction between mithyA, which is just false,
and asat, which is unreal. Thus "a hare's horn" is unreal all through, in
space and in time, hence asat. The status of jagat is different from this.

In the context of the vivekacUDAmaNi, the guru says "jagan mithyA" to the
student, for purposes of teaching to begin with. The student is presumably
still not a brahmajnAnI, and has to realize the unitive knowledge himself.

Vidyasankar