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

[Srinath Vedagarbha]

On Sat, May 7, 2016 at 4:43 AM, Venkatraghavan S <agnimile at gmail.com> wrote:

> I had a conversation with Sri Subbu yesterday which helped me clarify some
> concepts. Will share that with the group here:
>
> According to advaita, anupalabdhi pramANa is only applicable for those
> objects that are perceivable. That is, only they are yogya for anupalabdhi.
> Asat objects that are not perceivable in any locus at any time, are not
> yogya for anupalabdhi at all.
>
> So the objection against advaita that "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.", is not warranted because asat
> objects are not subject to anupalabdhi anyway.
>
> We are not saying abhAva of asat vastu is not knowable, we are saying that
> the asat vastu itself is not perceivable in the world.
>
Neither dvaitins are charging you do perceiving asat. Instead what they are
objecting to is that when you say asat chEt na prateeyeth while defining
mihya, you cannot deny "knowablity" to asat. This exactly is the argument
Sri.Jaya tirtha forwards -- nothing can be denied without knowing it first,
so when asat is known, then only it can be denied as something is "not
asat". So when asat is known, it only means asat chEt na prateeyeth hEtu is
a contradiction in terms.


I guess you and Sri. Subu misunderstood "pratIti" as "perception" rather
than "knowing". You both are agreeing above that you do not deny
knowability to asat vastu. Thank you for agreeing with dvaitins!


Further, Dvaita admits such a category of asat also - it also admits that
> such objects are not perceived in any locus at any time.
>
> So if their objection to advaita is how "unless you know what is asat,
> then only you can say given thing is "other than" asat.", our question to
> them is dvaita also differentiates adhyastha asat from atyanta asat. So if
> you also say that you cannot perceive an atyanta vastu as it is not
> perceived in any locus at any time, how do you do you differentiate
> adhyasta asat from such a non perceptible atyanta asat. What are you
> differentiating adhyasta asat from?
>
Quite simple -- while adhyastha asat is Eka dESha kAlEna abhAva, atyanta
asat is sarva kalAdEshEna abhAva. There is no difference in their
ontological state is concerned. This is unlike notion of mithya - a total
another ontological category advaita posit.


> The charge leveled against advaita applies to dvaita also.
>
Not really.

Please note, whatever difference dvaitin posit between them, such
difference is not critical/contradictory to the definition of either of the
terms. This is the key point.

If we have further engagement with Sri Srinath, we can consider how advaita
> is able to conceive of the asat category,  but for the moment I will stop.
>
> This is not necessary, as you & Sri. Subu essentially agreed with the very
point dvaitins are arguing for. I rest my case.

 Regards,
/vs