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

[Bhaskar YR]

praNAms Sri Venkatraghavan prabhuji
Hare krishna

I'm happy we got 3/7 :)


Ø     Yes, I am happy too, at last we are standing on the common platform ☺

On 5, you said: "In your position you are attributing satyatvaM only to the antaryAmi / adhishtAnaM of the jagat (in a way you are accepting only nimitta kAraNam and anupravesham as antaryAmi but ignoring the upAdAnatvaM),"

I don't think that is true sir because adhishthAnam = vivarta upAdAna kAraNam.


Ø   OK prabhuji, adhishTAnaM is upAdAna kAraNaM.  We will come to the ‘vivarta’ part of this upAdAna kAraNaM later after discussing the pariNAmi upAdAna kAraNaM of mAya.


We are saying jagat is a kArya of Brahman and MAya.


Ø   Though you are all of a sudden introducing the mAya alongwith brahman for the creation / existence of jagat, I am not objecting it, agreeing with it to go forward in the spirit of samanvaya ☺


The vivarta upAdAna kAraNam is Brahman and the pariNAmi upAdAna KAraNam is MAya. So even in our paksha, Brahman is the upAdAna kAraNa, it just so happens to be a vivarta upAdAna, not a pariNAmi.


Ø     So in other words, what is changeless in jagat is vivarta upAdAna kAraNaM i.e. brahman  and what is changing in the jagat is pariNAMi upAdAna kAraNaM i.e. mAya right prabhuji??  Now the question is, does this pariNAmi upAdAna kAraNa i.e. mAyA is a separate entity apart from vivarta upAdAna kAraNa i.e. brahman??  I don’t think you would accept this position, since we both agree that what is there before creation is ekaM eva adviteeyaM (sadeva soumya idamagraaseet, ekamevAdviteeyaM asserts shruti).  So, the changeless part of jagat i.e. vivartOpadAna kAraNaM i.e. adhishtAnaM brahma should have some relationship with pariNAmi upAdAna kAraNa of this changing jagat if not from the adhisthAnaM point of view atleast from the pariNAmi upAdAna point of view i.e. mAya point of view.  To clarify this point let us go back to the example of ‘golden ornament’.  The changing nAma rUpa has the pariNAmi upAdAna kAraNa i.e. mAya whereas the ‘gold’ as its adhishtAnaM / vivartOpadAna kAraNaM does not have to bother about pariNAmi kAraNam since gold in its svarUpa will always be ‘nirlipta’ nirvikAra.  So, from the adhshtAnaM point of view, no question can be raised on the relationship between vivarta and pariNAmi.  But pariNAmi upAdAna kAraNa i.e. mAya has to have some relationship with this adhishtAnam.  What exactly is this??  We have to find the answer for this because we have started the prakriya by accepting the one without second existence of adhishtAnaM i.e. brahman.  Shankara clarifies that this pariNAmi upAdAna kAraNa ( frankly I don’t know where exactly shankara categorically makes this distinction between  pariNAmi and vivarta to prove the jagat mithyatva, anyway let that be aside) if at all it is there it is nothing but Shakti of the parabrahman and there shankti is not different from Shakta.  Which I have said yesterday as well.  So, since there is ananyatvaM between Shakti and Shakta, the Shakti which is manifestation of manifold nAma rUpa nothing but Shakta in its causal form.  Kindly note I am not saying this, shankara himself clarifies in sUtra bhAshya  kAraNasya AtmabhUtA shaktiH, shakteshcha AtmabhUtaM kAryaM.  Anyway, this will be hard to understand for those who deny the intrinsic qualities of brahman i.e. sarvajnatvaM and sarvashaktitvaM (sUtra bhAshya 1-1-5).

 On 6 -  how to explain the appearance of manifoldness in jagat , you said:  "Don’t you think shankara explained this already by saying : satyatvAbhyupagamAt ...sarva vyavahArANAM sarva vikArANAM cha satyatvaM."

Yes, shankara did say here: "sarvam cha nAmarUpAdi sadatmanaiva" (all nAma rUpa are satya, in their nature of the Self), however he also said "vikArajAtam svatastu anritamaiva". He said "ata: sadAtmanA sarvavyavahArANAm sarvavikArANAm cha satyatvam sattoanyatve cha anritatvamiti" - all vyavahAra and all modifications are real in their nature of the Real Self, and unreal (anritatvam) separate from it.

The way I interpret that statement is to say that the Brahman as the adhishthAnam for nAma rUpa is real (adhishthAna means vivarta upAdAna kAraNa), that nAmarUpa by themselves are unreal. In other words, it is sadasat vilakshaNam, or mithyA.


Ø     Yes, prabhuji, Shankara already clarified his position that nAma rUpa ‘svatastu anrutameva’ after declaring the siddhAnta : sarvaM cha nAmarUpAdi sadAtmanaiva so it is not negation of nAma rUpa themselves, it is negation svatantra astitva of this nAma rUpa independently from brahman.  What is mithya is svatantra astitvaM of this nAma rUpa, which you also agreed.  Happy we are agreeing here to one more point. 4/7 shall I say ☺

Your question may be why do we need to talk of modification by themselves?


Ø   There cannot be any talk possible about modification themselves without bringing in the adhishtAnaM !! Can we talk about gold modifications like ring, bangle, bracelet etc. without considering the gold part in it??


Can we separate modification from Brahman?


Ø  No that is what I said above.

Why is it important to look at nAma rUpa, different from Brahman?


Ø   nAma rUpa without brahman is like mirror reflection of gold ornament.  There is no gold in that reflection and that gold ornament does not serve any practical purpose.  So, it is there just for the name sake.


Our answer to that is that if it wasn't important, Shankara could have stopped at sadAtmanA sarvavyavahArANAm sarvavikArANAm cha satyatvam - he needn't have added sattoanyatve cha anritatvam.


Ø   Shankara talks about avidyAkalpita nAma rUpa of jeeva to differentiate it from brahma mAnasa pratyaya of this jagat.  Hence he reiterates ‘svatantra jagat’ is asarvaM and abrahmaM, it is only in the vision of ajnAni-s whereas for the jnAni there exists nothing but brahman hence for him : “sarvaM cha nAmarUpAdi sadAtmanaiva”.  It is not avidyA bheda drushti, parichinna drushti.  It is avidyA rahita paripUrNa drushti or sama darshitvaM.

Hence, in my opinion, AchArya's addition to the end of the line is crucial.

>Yes, prabhuji, the post popular understanding about the jagat is from aviveki-s, ajnAni-s, for them shankara suggesting what you see the prapancha apart from you does not exist it is anrutameva.  Realize that what is there outside of you and what is there inside of you is only brahman and nothing else. Rishi vAmadeva realized it when he was in his mother’s garbha, bhakta prahllAda realized it and shown the hari in the pillar to his father.  And more importantly this is the way of teaching of shAstra. It starts from manifoldness of jagat, brings in the kAryakAraNa ananyatvaM and finally establishes the brahmaikatvaM.  From this methodology only, in my opinion we can effectively do the shAstra vAkya samanvaya with regard to brahmaikatva jnana.

So in the spirit of samanvayA:


1)       Brahman is nimitta kAraNam and vivarta upAdAna kAraNam of jagat.

Ø   Yes, agreed prabhuji ☺


2)       nAma rUpa in their essential nature are satya, but apart from that are anritam.



Ø   Very nicely said prabhuji agreed again ☺


3)      We call that mithyA, and you by ignoring the anritam part and looking only at the satyA part are calling jagat satyam.


Ø     We are not ignoring the jagat mithyatva as I have been clarifying several times.  What you look at mithyA is not mithya for us.  As per our book of vedAnta what is mithyA is jeeva kalpita jagat/samsara for which pariNAmi nityatvaM of mAya is adhishtAnaM.  In short, according to us, bhedAkAra is not mithyA, bheda buddhi in bhedAkAra is mithya.  A subtle but very significant difference indeed ☺

Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
Bhaskar