[Advaita-l] Defintion of anubhava

[Venkatraghavan S]

Namaste  Praveenji,

On 5 Jul 2017 6:45 a.m., "Praveen R. Bhat" <bhatpraveen at gmail.com> wrote:



On Tue, Jul 4, 2017 at 11:04 PM, Venkatraghavan S <agnimile at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Coming to our context, one cannot have anubhava of asat vastu.
>
True, but this is same as saying one cannot have अपरोक्षज्ञान of
अत्यन्तासत्/ अत्यान्ताभाव। So the connotation of the word ज्ञान vs अनुभव
doesn't change, although I do see that you are saying that it is a ज्ञान
which is different from ​स्मृति।

Yes, that is the extent of what I was trying to say. I am not too
particular on insisting on either koTis - that there is a difference, or
that there is no difference between jnAna and anubhava.

However, I am afraid, this leads to a similar आरोप of dualists as we saw in
the thread following Vadiraja's work.

Not sure, what are you referring to here?


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),
>
​Although we do not agree with Naiyayikas​ types of
प्रागुत्पत्त्याद्वयभावs, we also deny that अत्यान्तासत् can cause any शाब्द
and वाक्यबोध on its own merits. Bhashyakara says in Ch. Up. 6th chapter
that although there is no शाब्दबोध directly in a statement dealing with
अत्यान्तासत्/ अभाव, the way वाक्यबोध happens though is that the नञ्
(negation) of the भाव applies not to the word but to the entire sentence.
That is, the बोध happens first with the भाव वस्तु and the नञ् says that it
is the अभाव of that बोध। This is an awesome way that Bhashyakara deals with
statements such as असत्/ अभावः अस्ति or I would say even नास्ति|


Agreed, this is a very interesting interpretation of the ChAndogya vAkya.
If you will permit a digression, the same refutation is used in dealing
with the dvaitin's argument that there is ativyApti with respect to asat in
the fourth definition of mithyAtvam (svAshrayaniShTha atyantAbhAva
pratiyogitvam). It is not immediately obvious why there is ativyApti in
asat, because asast is never the object of sattvena pratIti and therefore
is not caught by the defintion. To explain, the dvaitin argues that asat
also sometimes has satvena pratIti - for example in veda vAkya like asadeva
somya idamagra AsIt, which translated directly reads as "asat alone was in
existence in the beginning".

To this, Madhusudana Sarasvati says that the correct interpretation of this
veda vAkya is "Sat alone was in existence in the beginning - No", ie the अ
is used in denial of the entire previous sentence, and not the word "sat",
which would imply "asat was in existence". Thus there is no ativyApti.

The tarangiNikAra, a dvaitin, comes up with an ingenious reply to this. He
says - the meaning for this sentence, as given by the siddhikAra, is that
"sat was not in existence in the beginning". Sat is Brahman. So, the
meaning of this sentence is : brahman was not in existence in the
beginning, or alternatively, brahma abhAva was in existence in the
beginning. Brahman being nityam, its abhAva is atyanta asat. So the
interpretation given by Madhusudana Sarasvati amounts to saying asat was in
existence in the beginning. Thus asat has sattvena pratIti, and therefore
there is ativyApti in the fourth definition of mithyAtvam.

In response, the advaitin says (I think this is by MM Ananthakrishna
Sastrigal, to be verified) - the siddhikAra's interpretation is as a pUrva
vAkya niShedha. It is saying - "sadeva idam agre AsIt - na." It is not -
"sadeva idam agre nAsIt". There is a difference between the two.

For example, consider these two sentences - "the pot was clay before" and
"the pot was milk before". If you do a negation of these sentences, the
first one is "the pot was not clay before", and the second one is "the pot
was milk before - No".

While the first one can convey the meaning of sattvena pratIti for the pot
(the pot could be something else, just not clay), the second does not
convey any reality to the pot - it is simply a negation of the sentence and
does not convey the meaning of sattvena pratIti. Similarly, in the
sentence असदेवेदमग्र आसीत् here the negation is of the sentence सदेवेदमग्र
आसीत्, and does not convey the brahma abhAva's or asat's existence. Thus
there is no ativyApti in asat.

I know this is not the subject matter of this thread, but since you brought
up the reference to ChAndogya bhAShya, I thought it may be of (some)
interest.

Regards,
Venkatraghavan