[Advaita-l] Can a mithyA-vastu produce an effect? असत्यवस्तुनः अर्थक्रियाकारित्वम्

[ShankaraBharadwaj Khandavalli]

Namaste,

It is only like saying brahman is everything that is bound and not bound. 
Advaitic position is that brahman is the sakshi and not bhokta, so there is no 
avidya or vidya or bandha or moksha. The whole cycle of bandha and moksha is for 
the bhokta, the upadhi samuccaya, and brahman is what shines in all of that, 
undifferentiated from them. So there is only adhyasa of bandha and moksha. 


This is not the sense in which Sri Ramanuja quotes Advaita. His evaluation is in 
terms of bandha and moksha being real transformations that happen to brahman. 
Which is obviously not Advaitic position. 



Secondly, this is not a "statement of Advaitic position" but only an admission 
in the phenomenal sense. 




Shankar


V Subrahmanian v.subrahmanian at gmail.com 
Mon May 30 12:34:10 CDT 2011 
________________________________
 
2011/5/30 ShankaraBharadwaj Khandavalli <shankarabharadwaj at yahoo.com>  > 
While the Visistadvaita position is internally consistent, its refutation > of 
Advaita is flawed because it misstates Advaita position before setting > out for 
refutation. > > For instance, Sri Ramanuja states Advaita position in his 
VedArtha Sangraha > as > > "brahmaiva ajnam, badhyate, mucyate ca" > > this is 
clearly not Advaitic position. >  Namaste.  The following position is admitted 
in Advaita:  ब्रह्मैव स्वाविद्यया बध्यत इव, स्वविद्यया मुच्यत इव ।  The 'iva' is 
very important. Shankaracharya's bhashyam for the Br.Up.1.4.10 substantiates 
this position.  This is the relevant bhashyam:      - // ब्रह्मणि 
अविद्यानुपपत्तिरिति चेन्न । ब्रह्मणि विद्याविधानात् ।    .....न ब्रूमः 
शुक्तिकायामिव ब्रह्मणि अतद्धर्माध्यारोपणा नास्तीति । किं    तर्हि? न ब्रह्म 
स्वात्मनि अतद्धर्माध्यारोपनिमित्तं अविद्याकर्तृ च इति ।    भवत्वेवं, न 
अविद्याकर्तृ भ्रान्तं च ब्रह्म । *किन्तु नैव अब्रह्म    अविद्याकर्ता चेतनो 
भ्रान्तोऽन्य इष्यते ।* ’नान्योऽतोऽस्ति विज्ञाता’, ’नान्यदतोऽस्ति    विज्ञातृ’, 
’तत्त्वमसि’,  ’आत्मानमेवावेदहं ब्रह्मास्मि’ ...इत्यादिश्रुतिभ्यः    । 
स्मृतिभ्यश्च ’ समं सर्वेषु भूतेषु’, ’अहमात्मा गुडाकेश’  ...। //  Regards, 
subrahmanian.v