[Advaita-l] Body is the disease

[Srinath Vedagarbha]

On Mon, Jan 13, 2014 at 12:57 AM, Anand Hudli <anandhudli at hotmail.com>wrote:

> Therefore, there is a circular dependency between
> the two. We cannot understand the concept of jIva without avidyA and we
> cannot understand the concept of avidyA without jIva. It is  therefore not
> possible to establish either concept. As stated by vAcaspati, this
> objection is, avidyopAdhibhedAdhIno jIvabhedo, jIvabhedAdhinashca
> avidyopAdhibheda iti parasparAshrayAdubhayAsiddhiriti. And he answers the
> objection by citing the example of the seed and sprout (bIjAnkura nyAya).
> The seed is the cause of the sprout and the sprout is the cause of the
> seed. But we accept this in everyday life, because it is impossible to say
> which came first - the seed or the sprout. Both are without a beginning,
> anAdi.


I heard from Dvaita friend that in their system above argument of Sri.
vAcaspati has been refuted on following grounds;

beejAnkura anavasta is not a dOSha at all. Anavasta is said to be a flaw
only in if a proposition is extended to support a human proposed
pramEya/siddhAnta. This is because the flaw arising from anavasta is
precisely defined as 'mUlAxaya pareem prAvuHu anavastam Hi dUShaNam '.
Meaning, given anavasta is said to be dOsha only if the final result in
such anavasta is an impossibility (one has to be waiting perpetually for
the determination).

beejAnkura-anavasta is not such anavasta, for this series is given fact (a
pratyksha) and the effect (of series) has already taken place. That means,
in these kind ofanavasta cases where the effect is already established
(siddha), such cases can not be called dOsha.

If one calls such series as dOSha, itself would lead to drisTa hAna dOsha.
Moreover, beejAnkura sequence is not an hypothesis proposed by an human at
all, but found in pratyaksha and is pramANa siddha.



> So vAcaspati says that because of the anAditva of jIva and avidyA,
> both have to be accepted as established. anditvAdbIjAMkuravadubhayasiddheH.
>
>
Even if we accept anAditva for of both jIva and avidya, it does not
translate proposed avidya vAda is correct. In beejAnkura series, ankura
creates the seed, but that seed is the cause for totally different ankura
but not its cause ankura. The same cannot be said in case of jIva-avidya
anavasta vAda. If I have a avidya, does my avidya causes another jIva? per
this vAda, I am the cause/ashraya of my avidya, but that avidya is cause of
me as well. This is the issue.

/SV