Words Maya and nirguNa

[Vidyasankar]

On Tue, 24 Jul 2001 07:04:24 -0400, K. Sadananda <sada at ANVIL.NRL.NAVY.MIL>
wrote:

>... He was referring to in his
>analysis that in the sense Bhagavaan Shankara used the concept of
>maaya in the doctrine of advaita there is one place in the upanishat
>and that is from Swetaashvatara Up. Yesterday he did mention about
>use of the maaya word in the Br. Up. but said it is not in the
>context of meaning that Bhagavaan Shankara used in the advaita
>doctrine.  Giving the benefit of doubt, I need to look at the
>contextual use of the word.

Actually, there is a whole lot of research on the various senses in
which the word mAyA has been used in the advaita tradition. It seems
to me that Sankara Bhagavatpada uses the word mAyA very much in the
same sense that is intended in "indro mAyAbhiH pururUpa Iyate". Of
course, a quick check in the SAnkarabhAshya on Br. Up. should clarify
how the AcArya himself interprets this Rk quotation (as Shrisha has
rightly pointed out).

Best wishes,
Vidyasankar