advaita-siddhi - 7 (MadhusUdana's reply, continued)

[Anand V. Hudli]

After rejecting the claim made by the opponent that the definitions
 of sadasadanadhikaraNatva are faulty, MadhusUdana next shows that
 the charge made regarding arthAntara is also not valid.

 MadhusUdana's reply (continued):

 yachcha - nirdharmakasya brahmaNaH sattvarAhitye .api sadrUpavat-
 prapaJNchasya sadrUpatvena-amithyAtvopapattyA arthAntaraM- uktam.h|
 tanna |

 And the (opponent) said: Just as the attributeless Brahman lacks
 existence (as an attribute) but (Its) very nature is existence,
 the  very nature of the world too is existence. This establishes
 that the world is not mithyA (unreal). By this (it follows that
 you will have) established something other (than what you wanted to) -
 arthAntara.

 (We say): It is not so.

 ekenaiva sarvAnugatena sarvatra satpratItyupapattau brahmavat.h
 prapaJNchasya pratyekaM satsvabhAvatAkalpena mAnAbhAvAt.h,
 anugata-vyavahAra-abhAva-prasaN^gAchcha |

 The understanding of sat (existence) as encompassing everything
 and everywhere is established by One (principle). (But) each and
 every thing in the world cannot be proved to be comprehended as
 (pure) existence in the same way as Brahman. And a contingency
 would arise due to the lack of a comprehensive system (of
 understanding, explaining, and discussing a large number of
 things and topics.) (Therefore, the claim that we would be committing
 the fallacy of  arthAntara is not correct.)

 MadhusUdana is making a crucial point here regarding what is technically
 called anugata-dharma or consecutive property in nyAya. When a property
 occurs in a number of different things, the naiyAyika would search for
 a common term or common concept to represent this common property and
 then refer to each of those things as possessing that common property.
 For example, if a pot is blue, a lotus is blue, and a cloth is blue,
 the naiyAyika would make "blue-ness" a common property and say that
 the pot possesses "blue-ness", the lotus possesses "blue-ness", and so
 on. Such a system wherein a number of things are explained using
 fewer concepts is said to have the advantage of "lAghava" or light-ness
 as compared to a system where a greater number of concepts is required,
 in which case a defect of "gaurava" or heaviness is said to prevail.
 This is directly related to the principle of "Occam's razor" as used in
 the West. If I can explain a certain number of things using some
 hypotheses and you can explain the same things using fewer hypotheses
 than mine, then your explanation is better than mine.

 In keeping with the principle of "lAghava" or lightness rather than
 heaviness, the naiyAyika-logician is always looking for anugata dharma's
 or common properties to explain things. In the case at hand, the opponent
 says that just as Brahman is by Its very nature existence, the duality
 in the world is also similarly by its very nature existence and hence
 real. MadhusUdana points out two problems with this claim:

  1)There is no comprehension of the existence of individual things
    in the world as Brahman is. One does not get the idea "this pot that
    I see now is eternally existent and is never sublated."

  2)If the reality of each and every thing in the world is admitted,
    then it would take a significant number of "real" entities to explain
    what is meant by "reality." This theory would be too heavy, suffer from
    the defect of "gaurava" because of the lack of a common property or
    anugata dharma. An explanation using a single non-dual Reality
    (Brahman) is superior even from this strictly logical viewpoint.


 Anand

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