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

[Srinath Vedagarbha]

Sorry for too many replies. I am just now catching up with the discussion.


On Wed, Mar 30, 2016 at 1:24 PM, Venkatraghavan S via Advaita-l <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

> Yes. Sri Bhaskar's contention is that jagat is Brahman. I see three ways
> for that to hold good:
>
> 1) There is no difference between jagat and Brahman. If there is no
> difference then jagat is simply nAma rUpa, which is mithyA. This ends up
> proving the opposite of Bhaskarji's contention.
>
> 2) There is a difference between kArya jagat and kAraNa Brahman. If there
> is a difference then how is jagat Brahman? Further, if there is a real
> difference, and we somehow say that jagat is Brahman, this implies svagata
> bheda in Brahman. This option is not possible as that is shruti viruddha
> (neha nAnAsti kinchana) and yukti viruddha (we start off saying jagat is
> Brahman and end up proving jagat isn't Brahman).
>
> 3) There is a difference in vyavahAra but no difference in paramArtha
> between jagat and Brahman. Put like this, the difference between Brahman
> and jagat itself is sadasat vilakshaNam. So the next question is, is that
> difference mithyA or satyam? To answer that question we have to go through
> the same 3 options, and if we reject the first 2 of the options for the
> same reasons as above, we have to posit a second difference that is sadasat
> vilakshaNa too, and so on so forth, leading to infinite regress. So the
> more we try to define jagat, the more it eludes description, leaving us to
> conclude that all we can say about jagat is that it is mithyA and leave it
> at that.
>
> Not sure if all that makes sense, but that's my understanding of the topic.
>
>

I appreciate the rigor of above logic.

Btw, sad-asad-vilaxaNam for this jagat best fits in Dvaita model. This
jagat is *different* from asat such as hare's horn on the grounds that it
is a valid pratIti or pramA jnyAna in Brhamn. at the same time this jagat
is also *different* from sat (Brahman) on the grounds of it's dependency.

Your point 1 does not apply for dvaitins as they deny aikya between jagat
and Brahamn.

Point 2 also does not apply to them, as they do not hold jagat is same as
Brhman.

Point 3 and its infinite regression does not applies as well. This is
because the posited difference between jagat and Brahman is quite satya and
not sad-asad-vilaxaNa (or mithya).

/sv