[Advaita-l] bhaava ruupa or abhaava ruupa avidyaa?

[Anand Hudli]

kuntimaddi sadananda wrote:

>Could you discuss based on your understanding of advaita Vedanta as 
>presented by Shankara and
>post-shankara advaitic masters, whether avidyaa belongs to bhaava ruupa or 
>abhaava ruupa.  >Bhagavan Ramanuja  in Shree Bhaashhya criticizes 
>extensivelythe bhaavaruupa avidhya as basis for >his mahaapuurva paksha.

Greetings! Nice to hear from you. I will try to answer the question briefly.

As is accepted in classical advaita, avidyA is sad-asad-vilakShaNa, 
different from sat or asat. This is the same as what Chitsukha calls 
bhAva-abhAva-vilakShaNa. Therefore the appropriate term to use for avidyA is 
anirvachanIyA. If Ramanuja or others have criticized bhAva-rUpa-avidyA, it 
is only because of their misunderstanding of avidyA as A) real and as B)  
really belonging to (the blemishless) Brahman. Of course, if avidyA really 
rests in Brahman, advaita sounds wonderfully absurd! It comes as no surprise 
that sharp criticisms can result from such an assumption.

Then why do we call this bhAva-rUpa-avidyA? "upachArAt.H" as Chitsukha says. 
Only to emphasize that this avidyA is different from asat (or abhAva), it is 
customary to call it bhAva-rUpA. It does not mean that it is bhAva rUpa in 
an absolute sense.

Anand

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