[Advaita-l] Is the concept of maya essential to explain advaita?

[Rajaram Venkataramani]

On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 6:58 PM, Vidyasankar Sundaresan <
svidyasankar at hotmail.com> wrote:

>
>
> > If you are saying Maya is Ishwara's Sakti used for creation and
> > activity it is correct. No problem. But where is Sruti saying the
> > Ishwara Sakti is Mithya? There is no such thing Mithya anywhere.
>
> Who is saying that ISvara Sakti is mithyA? Name one author in
> the advaita tradition who describes ISvara-Sakti as mithyA. Do
> not point to translations with the words God, illusion, delusion,
> lordly power etc. in the English language. Cite a Sanskrit text.
> If you can successfully find even one statement to that effect,
> I would be very interested in it.


Rajaram: May I point you to what Shri Bhaskar wrote in response to my
question on whether Ishwara is sat or mithya? Shri Bhaskar said,"Kindly
refer shankara's AraMbhaNAdhikaraNa sUtra bhAsya with regard to this.
Shankara quite explicitly mentions here that Ishwara, IshwaratvaM etc.
holds good only at transactional level where jevEshwara bedha is there!!
tadevaM avidyAtmakOpAdhiparicchedApekshameva Ishwarasya IshvaratvaM,
sarvajnatvaM, *sarvashaktitvaM* cha..." na paramArthataH vidyayA
apAstasarvOpAdhisvarUpe Atmani Ishtreeshitavya sarvajnatvAdi vyavahAraH
upapadyate.  No ambiguity here in shankara's declaration.  He clearly
states that the existence of Ishwara and his qualities like *omnipotence*,
omniscience etc. are only in the realm of avidyA."

If Ishwara is sat, then His shakti (maya) should also be sat. If Ishwara is
mithya, how can His shakti be sat? Contrariwise, if maya is sad asad, how
can Ishwara be sat because that would imply a difference between shakti and
shaktiman?