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

[Srinath Vedagarbha]

On Fri, Apr 22, 2016 at 4:36 AM, Venkatraghavan S <agnimile at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Sri Srinath,
>
> I am typing out Sri Subbu-ji's answer to your question below as he cannot
> do so at this present time (his answer was relayed to me in a voice
> message). Any errors below are due to my lack of understanding/error in
> paraphrasing, not due to Subbu ji.
>
> <Start of Subbu ji's reply>
>
> "You said:
> <if you deny perceptability/knowability (pratIti) to sat padArtha, then
> one wonder how mAyavAdins conceive asat-vilaxaNatvaM when they define
> mithya as asat-lilaxaNa along with sad-vilaxaNa. Unless you know what is
> asat, then only you can say given thing is "other than" sat. But itself is
> used as hEtu in the anumAna 'asat chEt na pratiyatE'.>
>
> The question of asad vilakshaNatva that you have raised is applicable to
> dvaita also.
>
> All vAdins accept vandhyA putrah, hare's horn, kUrma rOma etc as atyanta
> asat. You have defined these as sarva dEsha kAla asat and distinguished
> them from eka dEsha kAla asat of sarpa in rajju.
>
> Can you say that sarva dEsha kAla alIkatva of a hare's horn has to be
> vEdya for it to be called asat? You cannot.
>
Why not? Don't you have a pramANa category called 'anupalabdhi' to 'know'
the absense of something? So, you cannot say absense/abhAva cannot be known
at all.


> To accept that hare's horn is asat, there is no requirement that it has to
> be vEdya.
>
vEdya here is not about anuyOgi, the very abhAva of object being denied
(pratiyOgi) is itself is known. This exactly is the application of
anupalabdhi pramANa to ascertain abhAva of anything.

Therefore it is possible to conceive of certain things as asat, without
> requiring their vedyatvam.
>
Not correct.



> Once that is accepted, advaitins can say mithyA is vilakshaNa from such an
> asat.
>
> If dvaitins say that vedyatvam is a precondition for asat, either 1) they
> must accept the perceptibility of hare's horn or 2) accept that hare's horn
> is not asat - both outcomes are untenable and contradict the dvaitin
> position".
>
This is based on wrong understanding of Subbuji regarding pramAaNa to know
any absense in general and his own school's anupalabdhi pramANa in
perticular.



> <End of Subbu-ji's message>
>
> In addition, he suggests that we refer this link which contains a very
> nice explanation of the difference in the definition of sattA between
> dvaita and advaita, and consequently, the definitions of asat and mithyA in
> advaita and adhyastha and alIka in dvaita.
>
Which link?


> Just to add another note. This is my addition -  not directly related, but
> it does speak about vedyatvam (epistemology) in the context of satta
> (ontology). In advaita, the perceptibility of something is not a
> precondition of its sattA. In fact, I would say that its very
> perceptibility rules out it as being sat or asat.
>

Perceptibility may or may not needed for a thing to say it exist. But
existence is precondition and very much needed for our
knowledge/perceptability about it. Existence is quite different from (our)
knowledge about existence.

> Only brahman is sat in advaita, we cannot rely on pramANas to perceive it
> as an object - it is "known" only via shruti. By knowable, we say that sat
> is not "knowable" in the popular sense of objectifying it. Secondly, asat
> is also not perceivable / knowable, as it doesn't exist in any period of
> time and is a purely fictitious entity for perception to occur.
>

 Your position (of very perceptibility rules out it as being sat or asat),
rules out sat ever being known to exist, for being you cannot known so
unless you have a valid pramANa, whcih by definition falls under
perceptability category. Perhaps for this reason Shankara is denying atma
being object of its own knowledge (atma atmani na viShaya). This leads the
very doctrine 'only sat exist' on the loose grounds, for being the very
moment you know about sat it automatically means to be non existing per
your own definition.


/sv