[Advaita-l] Does Brahman's svaprakAshatvam make it mithyA?

[Venkatraghavan S]

Namaste Chandramouliji,

I have not studied bhAmati, so you should check with someone more
knowledgeable on this specific question.

However, according to the advaita siddhi, bhAmati says that upahita brahman
is mithyA, not because of its svaprakAshatvam or lack thereof but because
it is drishyam, defined in this vikalpa as vritti vyApyatvam.

The purvapakshi wants to link vritti vyApyatvam with svayamprakAshatvam and
the siddhikAra breaks that link.

The vyApti mentioned in advaita siddhi is that wherever there is
asvaprakAshatvam, there is ashuddhatvam. However the reverse is not
necessarily true - where there is ashuddhatvam, there need not be
asvaprakAshatvam. upahita Brahman is vritti upahita chaitanyam, so by
definition it is ashuddham. However, upahita brahman's ashuddhatvam, does
not imply its asvaprakAshatvam. It may be svayamprakasham or not. There is
no harm to the vyApti either way.

In the same chapter of advaita siddhi, there is another vikalpa where
drishyatvam is taken as asvayamprakAshatvam.

svaprakAsham here is defined as स्वप्रकाशत्वं हि स्वापरोक्षत्वे
स्वातिरिक्तानपेक्षत्वम् | the requirement for nothing else to directly know
a thing apart from itself is svaprakAshatvam. upahita Brahman requires a
vritti to know it, so by that account it is not svaprakAsham. I don't know
if bhAmati comes to the same conclusion.

Regards,
Venkatraghavan

On Mon, Apr 17, 2017 at 9:25 AM, H S Chandramouli <hschandramouli at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Namaste Sri Venkatraghavan Ji,
>
> As per Bhamati, is Upahita Brahman svaprakasham or not? Is it svaprakasham
> but mithya, or is it not svaprakasham and hence drishyam and mithya?
>
> Regards
>