[Advaita-l] Fwd: Why only jagat is mithya and jeeva is brahman !!??

[Srinath Vedagarbha]

On Fri, Mar 25, 2016 at 2:56 AM, Venkatraghavan S via Advaita-l <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

> Namaste all,
>
> I am responding to the substantive portion of Sri Shiv Dinkar's argument.
> Let us leave the other emotive points about Advaita and advaitins aside, as
> they doesn't merit a response.
>

First the disclaimer -- I am not representing the original poster
Sri.Dinakara here. I don't even know him other than through emails on these
forums.



>
> Essentially his argument is for any adhyAsa of jagat to happen on the
> adhishThAna Brahman, two things are necessary as a rule - sine qua non, in
> his words.
>
> 1) there must be a previous knowledge of the adyastha vastu and adhishThAna
> vastu.
> 2) there must be similarity between adhyastha vastu and adhishThAna.
>
> Re rule 1, we agree. However that doesn't mean that the knowledge of the
> previous adhyastha vastu is of a *satya* vastu. If I see a ghost in a
> horror movie and when walking back from the cinema theater I see a shadow
> and think it is the ghost I saw, that is an adhyAsa of a ghost in the
> adhishThAna shadow. However, the basis for the previous ghost knowledge
> that enabled me to superimpose a ghost on the shadow now is not a  ghost
> that has paramArtha satyam. It is a mithyA ghost seen in a film.


Previously perceived adhyastha may not be real, but the very knowledge
gained from such perception is quite real. This knowledge, while it is
ayathArtha-jnAna (invalid/false knowledge), quite real nevertheless. Seeing
ghost image in the movie is indeed real (the spend millions of rupees real
money in making such movies). What is ayathArtha in this is believing such
real image represents real vastu out there. Based on such ayathArtha jnAna
one super-imposes "ghost" on the shadow.

In this case, you cannot get away with necessity of real image on the
screen as a prerequisite for such adhyAsa.

In the case of silver-over-shell adhyAsa, prior perception of silver in the
shop serves the prerequisite of having reality for adhyastha vastu. That
silver in the shop has now flaw as far as misalignment between its
perception and its reality as a vasthu. Where as in case of ghost, that
misalignment exist.



>
> So while the requirement of prior knowledge of adhyastha vastu is fine, it
> is not necessary that the knowledge is generated by a real vastu "sine qua
> non". Even a mithyA vastu can generate the sanskAra for future adhyAsa.
>

Again, adhyastha vastu itself is not mithya per se, but rather it is real
and our knowledge about is ayathArtha.

I can agree with you this aythArtha jnAna generates the saMskAra for future
adhyAsa, but you cannot get away with denying real vastu to start with.

Side question -- when it is said dvaita/duality (as genre) itself is mithya
due to adhyAsa, your position (along with other member who said adhyAsa in
prior janma-s will render adhyAsa in future janma-s) suffers from
anyOnAShraya falacy, for there is no duality of "futute" or "past" unless
there exist adhyAsa, and adhyAsa cannot exist unless you have "prior"
knowledge of adhyastha vastu.




>
> 2) Secondly, there is no absolute rule that similarity between adhyastha
> vastu and adhishThAna vastu be there for all adhyAsa to happen. Children
> and ignorant people look at the sky and say the sky is blue. Blueness is
> not an attribute of the sky, nor is there any similarity between blueness
> and sky. What is the similarity between mirage water and sand?
> This rule for similarity is just arbitrary and not "sine qua non".
>
>
Above argument is based on the assumption that "blue" and "water" one
perceives is a adhyAsa similar to "snake" and "silver".  There is no
invalidity element in your perception of blueness and waterness itself. If
you were to take the photograph, the jaDa camera also sees the same thing.
Invalidity lies only in your knowledge when you think such blue/water
really exist there on their own rights. Hence, in Dvaita system there is no
such thing as "mithya" as a ontological category as such. Only two
categories of sat and asat. On the knowledge side, they do have
epistemological categories of yathArtha and ayathArtha (valid/invalid
knowledge). What you call adhyAsa is a simple case of brAnti, which is
another prabhEda of ayathArtha jnAna (among other are viparIta jnAna,
saMShaya etc).

So, your above refutation based on sky and mirage example is not valid for
the objection.

/sv