[Advaita-l] Re The stance of the upadeshasaahasrii on Ignorance, Deep Sleep

[S Jayanarayanan]

subhanu saxena subhanu at hotmail.com wrote:

[..]
 
>Kartik: Deep Sleep is 
> filled with tamas, vide upadeshasaahasrii 1.16.18: Thank you for the opportunity 
> to clarify what is tamas in Shankara’s system.  These verses talk to the apavāda 
> of the 3 states. There is another reference you may know in US metric 17.26 
> suṣuptākhyam tamo’jnānam... This verse is quoted by Suresvara also in NS 4.43.  
> Just to repeat what I had written, whenever you invoke the notion of a “state” 
> then ignorance is there vide 2.1.265 suptah prabuddha ityevam. The question is, 
> does an ignorance have a presence in the superimposed state of deep sleep  when 
> the faculties for empirical transaction are not present. The answer is that it 
> cannot because it is an imagined notion of the nature of “I do not know”, and 
> there is nothing to reveal it abhivyañjakābhāvāt [NS 3.57. Same point in BUBV 
> 4.3.1517]. So tamas is simply of the nature “I do not know”, not outside 
> superimposition. Vide Karika Bhashyam 1.14 nidrā uktā tattvāpratibodha-lakṣaṇam 
> tama iti. BUBV 1.4.341 that has been given before explicitly defines tamas as of 
> the nature “I do not know”. The word bῑja can misread and be read as some 
> “indescribable” substance that somehow has upādāna-kāraṇatva. In fact BUBV 
> 1.4.340 refutes the indescribability of tamas and we have the karika bhashyam 
> bῑjam prājñatve nimittam (ie not upādāna).
 
 
To reiterate the upadeshasaahasrii 1.16.18:

  jAgratsvapnau tayobIjaM suShuptaakhyaM tamomayam.h .
  anyonyasminnasattvaachcha naastItyetat-trayaM tyajet.h ..

  "Transmigratory existence consists of waking and dream.
  Their root is deep sleep consisting of Ignorance (i.e. tamas).
  No one of these three states has a real existence because
  each goes out of existence when another remains in it.
  One should therefore give up all these THREE states."

Note the "trayaM tyajet.h" -- "Give up THREE states". Obviously, this means to reject
jAgrat-svapna-suShupti. If Deep Sleep were really the paramArtha state, would Sankara ask
us to reject it or remain in it?

What you call mukti is available as a sleeping pill in your local pharmacy!