[Advaita-l] Defintion of anubhava

[Venkatraghavan S]

More correctly, it should perhaps be smritivikalpAbhyAm bhinna:.
Regards,
Venkatraghavan

On 4 Jul 2017 6:34 p.m., "Venkatraghavan S" <agnimile at gmail.com> wrote:

> Namaste Praveen ji,
>
>
> On Tue, Jul 4, 2017 at 1:50 PM, Praveen R. Bhat <bhatpraveen at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Namaste Venkatraghavanji,
>>
>> I couldn't find the definition of अनुभव in that thread. The
>> interpretation, however, looks same as what I said in my first post अपरोक्षज्ञानम्।
>> This is not at all at dispute. To clarify, I wish to know:
>>
>> 1) Whether we agree with the Nyaya definition स्मृतिभिन्नज्ञानम् अनुभवः। If
>> not,
>>
>> 2) What is our definition of अनुभव?
>>
>
> I now understand the purpose behind your query. I cannot recall coming
> across a specific definition of anubhava, but there is one thing I wish to
> draw your attention to. According to yoga shAstra, there are five kinds of
> vrittis - pramANa, viparyaya, vikalpa, smriti and nidrA. This is something
> which is acceptable to us too.
>
> yatArtha jnAna corresponds to pramANa vritti, ayatArtha jnAna to viparyaya
> vritti, vikalpa is different from these two - asat vastu are the "objects"
> of vikalpa vritti - which is neither correct nor incorrect knowledge. nidrA
> and smriti are well known.
>
> However, the naiyyAyika says that there is no such thing as asat - it
> cannot even be the object of nAsti shabda prayoga.
>
> The naiyyAyika differentiates atyantAbhAvam from asat - what is present in
> one thing, but completely absent in all three periods of time in other
> things is called atyantAbhAvam by him. In vAyu, rUpam is atyantAbhAvam.  So
> in a vAkya, if "nAsti" shabda prayogam happens, according to the
> naiyyAyika, it can only refer to atyantAbhAvam, not asat.
> In nyAya matam, abhAva is divided into -  samsargAbhAvam and
> anyonyAbhAvam. samsargAbhAvam is divided into three - prAgabhAvam,
> pradhvamsAbhAvam and atyantAbhAvam.  asat is not in one of the abhAva
> categories.
>
> Therefore, he does not need to recognise a category of vritti like vikalpa
> that refers to an asat vastu.
>
> Coming to our context, one cannot have anubhava of asat vastu. Because the
> naiyyAyika by definition says asat cannot be the object of even a
> nAsti shabda prayoga, he can get away with defining anubhava as smriti
> bhinnam (i.e. it is yatArtha jnAna, ayatArtha jnAna, sushupti jnAna), I
> think we will have to define anubhava as smriti-vikalpayorbhinnam.
>
> Regards,
> Venkatraghavan
>