[Advaita-l] DSV in the advaitasiddhi: adhyAsa is substantiated

[Anand Hudli]

Shri Venkatraghavanji,
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Coming to the topic of DSV and the two sattAs, it is obvious that
shuktirUpya bAdha is prAtibhAsika because its svarUpa + kAraNa nivritti
happens with shukti jnAna.  However, does shukti's svarUpa + kAraNa
nivritti happen with anything other brahma pramA? Is the !E in !K->!E,
bAdha?
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Yes. All doubts and questions that arise can be answered (washed away) with
"svapnavat", ie. using the (water of) dream analogy, as appayya dIkShita
says in the SLS, "atra ca saMbhAvita-sakala-shaMkA-paMkaprakShAlanaM
svapnadRShTAntasaliladhArayaiva kartavyamiti". DSV maintains that objects
in the dream and waking states are of the same order of reality. If we
accept that there is bAdha of dream objects in waking then there is also
bAdha of waking objects in dream. The immediate objection to this will be
that waking state objects exhibit persistence/continuity in the sense the
waking state retains its objects across intervening dream and/or sleep
states. To this objection, PrakAshAnanda replies that the notion of
continuity or persistence or recognition (pratyabhijnA) is itself an error.
Essentially, we wake up to a different world than the one that existed
before going to sleep. In that case, how is it that we feel the waking
world is the same? The answer is: because of sArUpya, similarity, not
identity. This is a good Segway to the next topic in the DSV discussion.
The pUrvapakShin says if we accept the DSV principle of "jnAnabhedena
viShayabhedaH", i.e. the contents (objects) of any two cognitions will be
different, then the bhramajnAna "idaM rajatam" and the bAdhakajnAna "nedaM
rajatam" will have to refer to different objects. The silver of the
bhrama-jnAna is not the same as the silver that is denied in the
bAdhaka-jnAna. This means the illusory silver will not be canceled at all.
Madhusudana agrees that the silver is different in the two jnAnas, but
there is sArUpya or similarity, which is sufficient to do the job of bAdha.

Anand