[Advaita-l] Sringeri AchAryas on the vivaraNa - the cause of adhyAsa (3)

[Anand Hudli]

bhaskar.yr at in.abb.com  wrote:
>but why??  is it so necessary that we have to give some name & form to 
>ajnAna to do brahma >jignAsa??  If this positive aspect of avidyA is so 
>important why shankar in his preamble to sUtra >bhAshya where he deals with 
>this exclusively did not mention a single word about it?? The
>vyAkhyAnakAra-s' split of the compound word as mithya-ajnAna is totally out 
>of context if we >understand the purpose of definition of adhyAsa/ajnAna by 
>shankara.


There could be several reasons why Shankara does not explicitly mention 
bhAva-rUpa-ajnAna in his adhyAsa bhAShya. He uses the word "naisargika" 
(natural) more than once in talking about adhyAsa. So Shankara is describing 
this natural phenomenon adhyAsa and how it operates in  humans and animals 
alike, making his observations, by and large, without quoting from the 
shruti. The shruti is primarily meant for revealing to us that which we do 
not see otherwise or are not able to infer otherwise through reasoning. The 
thrust of Shankara's argument is that the evil of adhyAsa afflicts us and it 
can only be destroyed through the study of VedAnta. The aim of the 
introduction is to lead us to the study of VedAnta and not to dig deeper and 
get into an analysis of adhyAsa and its cause, which will be done anyway 
later during the study of VedAnta. It is only with the help of shruti and 
reasoning consistent with the shruti will we be able to do this analysis. 
This also does not mean that the shruti is only preoccupied in analyzing 
adhyAsa. Its main topic is Brahman.

The other point raised about PadmapAda's usage of the word mithyAjnAna is 
already addressed in the first part. I have noticed that the same points or 
"doubts" keep coming up even after appropriate responses. In such cases, it 
is better to use time for other purposes.


Anand

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