reposting again

[Vidyasankar]

K. Sadananda <sada at ANVIL.NRL.NAVY.MIL> wrote:

>Implication, as I understand, is the use of  maaya as sadasat
>vilakshaNa is shruti based anupaladbi rather than directly shruti
>statements to that effect.

Many points to be noted here.

1. anupalabdhi relates directly to the non-perception of a thing.
e.g. "The book is not on the table" - this statement is about the
perception that the table does not form the locus of the book. It
says nothing whatsoever about the existence or non-existence of the
book. In other words, anupalabdhi is a matter of epistemology, and
does not have strong ontological implications. Thus, the book in
this example may exist, and may be in a bookshelf, but not on the
table. However, the operation of the anupalabdhi pramANa does not
say anything about any locus other than the table. For example,
the book may not be in the bookshelf, but in somebody's hands.
Another possibility is that the book in question does not exist at
all. A number of ontological possibilities arise, but anupalabdhi
does not bother about those.

2. I can't think of a single place in Sankaracarya's works where
the term sadasad-vilakshaNa is used to describe mAyA. This is a
term coined by later authors. The phrase Sankaracarya uses is
tattvAnyatvAbhyAM anirvacanIya, i.e. that which cannot be said to
be either this-ness (tat-tva) or other-ness (anya-tva). It should
also be noticed that he uses the term anirvacanIya mostly when he
talks of avidyA, not with respect to mAyA. A linguistic distinction
can be made in the manner in which Sankaracarya talks of these.

3. Sankaracarya's taittirIya bhAshya 1.6-7 is absolutely essential
reading for understanding his approach to sat and asat. Check his
comments on asanneva sa bhavati asad brahmeti veda cet ..., satyaM
cAnRtaM ca satyam abhavat ..., and asad vA idamagra AsIt tato vai
sad ajAyata. What does Sruti mean when it says, "asat existed here,
in the beginning, and sat was born from asat?" How to reconcile with
chAndogya - sad eva saumya idamagra AsIt? Well, the Advaita answer
to the problem is, mAyA. Another text to pay close attention to is
gItA bhAshya 2.16 - nAsato vidyate bhAvo nAbhAvo vidyate sataH ...

4. Throughout the major bhAshyas, Sankaracarya refers to mAyA as a
parameSvara Sakti. Numerous examples can be cited from brahmasUtra
and gItA commentaries. See especially comments on sUtra 1.4.3, where
avyakta is called avidyAtmikA, parameSvarASrayA, mAyAmayI. Also, the
comments on gItA 7.4-5, where a distinction is made between the lower
prakRti (or kshetra) and the higher prakRti (or kshetrajna). Compare
these with the comments on kshetra-kshetrajna-yoga chapter proper,
i.e. chapter 13 of gItA.

5. Finally, all that said, there is no reason why the mAyA that is
parameSvara Sakti cannot also be described as sad-asad-vilakshaNa.
The later authors in the Advaita tradition are close enough in spirit
and in intent to Sankaracarya himself. mAyA is not the same as the
pure Brahman (sat) and it is not like the hare's horns, i.e. totally
unreal (asat or atyanta asat). That is why it is said to be a thing
that is other (vilakshaNa) than either sat or asat.

Vidyasankar
>From ADVAITA-L at LISTS.ADVAITA-VEDANTA.ORG Sat Jul 28 19:16:01 2001
Message-Id: <SAT.28.JUL.2001.191601.0200.ADVAITAL at LISTS.ADVAITAVEDANTA.ORG>
Date: Sat, 28 Jul 2001 19:16:01 +0200
Reply-To: List for advaita vedanta as taught by Shri Shankara
        <ADVAITA-L at LISTS.ADVAITA-VEDANTA.ORG>
To: List for advaita vedanta as taught by Shri Shankara
        <ADVAITA-L at LISTS.ADVAITA-VEDANTA.ORG>
From: Stig Lundgren <slu at CHELLO.SE>
Subject: Re: Back in India

On 20th July, 2001, Anand Hudli wrote:

One book I found very useful is Swami SachchidA-
> nandendra SarasvatI's (in Kannada) on the GauDapAda kArikAs.

Is this the book "Sri Gaudapada Hridaya", or is it another book?
By the way, "Sri Gaudapada Hridaya" has been translated into
English by D. B. Gangolli as "The Essential Gaudapada".

Best regards
Stig Lundgren