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

[V Subrahmanian]

On May 6, 2016 12:46 AM, "Srinath Vedagarbha" <svedagarbha at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> 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.

That is exactly why the Madhwa objection looses its punch. When
asadvilakshanatva is admitted, one need not question 'how is asad
known'?Only because the Madhva school accepts a category called asat, they
differentiate an adhyasta asat from that atyanta asat.  Thus, the former is
(atyanta)asadvilakshana for them.
>
>>
>> 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.
>
 The Madhwa objection has no basis for that reason alone.  Actually,
anupalabdhi as taught in the Vedanta Paribhasha comes with a condition: it
is yogya-anupalabdhi. If I go into a room to check if a tumbler is there on
a table, if there is enough light and my eyesight is without defect, and if
the tumbler is indeed there on the table, I get that pramā. But given the
first two conditions and the tumbler is not there, I 'know' through the
anupalabdhi pramana that the tumbler is not there.  The hare's horn is not
a candidate for anupalabdhi since there is no way it can be known to be in
any locus; it has no upalabdhi yogyatā to be a prameya vastu.

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

Why?


>
>
>>
>> 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.

See above, the note on anupalabdhi.


vs


>
The wrong objection of Madhwa to asadvilakshanatva is due to the above
alone. If Madhwa had realized that anu
>>
>> <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
>