[Advaita-l] World is Flower in the Sky

[Srinath Vedagarbha]

On Tue, Apr 2, 2013 at 2:18 PM, V Subrahmanian <v.subrahmanian at gmail.com> wrote:
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>The idea in these verses is: That which is not there before and after the
>appearing of the object/event, is deemed to be not there in the period of
>its appearing too. This amounts to saying: The object does not exist in all
>the three periods of time: past, present and future.

This is correct as per Madhusudhana Sarswati in Advaitasiddhi.

In defense against dualist’s attack, he takes the position what is
termed as ‘svarUpENa-niShEdha’.

nApi dwitIyaH : - abhAdhyatvarUpa pAramArthikatvasya bhAdhyatvarupa
mithyAtvaniruNyatvEna, anyOnyAShrayat | pAramArthikatva-syApi
svarUpeNa niSEdhE, prathamapaxOkthadOshapthi: athaH: tasyApi
pAramArthikatvAkAreNa niShEdhaE anavastA iti chEt –
myvam – svarUpENaiva trikAlikaniShEdhasya, prapanchE sukthi rUpyAdau
cha angikArAth |

What Madhusudana is saying is that the mithyabhUta jagat is negated in
its very essence in all three period of time (trikAlika niShEda).
That is to say this jagat is asat in its essence ontologically
speaking.

>The Yo.VA example that is endorsed by the Mahabharata, the Bhagavata and
>the Gau.kA. is to show that the world experience is just like a dream
>experience which has to be seen as that which is available for experience
>ONLY during the time of experience but  before and after.  Such entities
>are deemed to be non-existent, that is, not existing at all times.

So, does this mean -- ‘mithya’ is plain ‘asat’ only when one is
speaking from ontologically, and an ‘error’ when one is speaking from
epistemologically?

Does this mean when we are talking about vastu-tantra categories there
are only two categories ‘sat’ & ‘asat’, but third category of mithya
is only from purusha-tantra perspective?

It seems there is some meaning in dualist’s accusation that advaitic
‘mithya’ is another name for plain old asat and just a fig leaf
attempt to distance themselves from jagat shUnyavAdins?

-SV