[Advaita-l] Two Advaitic verses with a profound combined purport

[Srinath Vedagarbha]

Namaste,


On Fri, Apr 5, 2019 at 11:33 PM Venkatraghavan S <agnimile at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>>
>> On the philosophical note -- why svarUpa is equated with adhisTAna in the
>> school?  To the question what is the svarUpa of silver in the illusion? If
>> you deny reality to it, then you are denying reality to adhisTAna shell. On
>> the other hand, if you assert  reality for the svarUpa of silver (just
>> because you want to preserve reality to adhisTAna shell), you are asserting
>> reality to silver as it is presented.
>>
>
> svarUpa is not being equated with adhiShThAna. I'm saying that the only
> aspect of the vastu svarUpa that is preserved after the niShedha is the
> adhiShThAna.
>
> The reason for this is because the niShedha itself is vyAvahArika, having
> Brahman as its adhiShThAna and it cannot negate it's own adhiShThAna.
>
>
I am afraid niShedha itself cannot be vyAvahArika , otherwise itself gets
sublated (when pAramArthika is realized) and hence existence of world is
affirmed.

As has been pointed out by Tatvavaada scholars like Sri. Jayatiirtha, the
mithya niShedhatvaM itself has be a Paaramaarthika satya; otherwise, if it
is itself vyaavahaarika, then it  is not true, and will lapse, meaning that
the  mithya vyAvahArika itself becomes a Paaramaarthika satya. In the
standard example of the rope-snake illusion, the false perception of the
snake and its subsequent negation are must be true at the end after the
illusion lapses. The man cannot deny that his perception of the snake and
its negation itself was false.



> A question may arise here - if some aspect of the object is preserved
> after negation, how can it be svarUpeNa niShedha - a total negation of the
> object?
>
> We have to see the context of where svarUpeNa niShedha occurs in the
> advaita siddhi. It is in the context of the second definition of mithyAtva
> - pratipannopAdhau traikAlika niShedha pratiyogitvam.
>

I would argue this traikAlikika niShedha concept of MS is in direct tension
with Shanakara's notion. Sankara (and other the classical Advaitins) are at
some pains to point out that they do not deny the proximate reality of the
world experience and urge that said experience *will be* eventually
sublated/negated.  For example his comm. on IU 17 where he reads
"so.ahamasmi" as  "bhavAmi". Also elsewhere Shanakara says 'kiMcha
brahmavidAmanubhavo .api prapanchasya bAdhakaH| teShAM
niShprapanchAtmadarshanasya vidyamAnatvAt.h ' and conveys the idea that
prapancha bhAdhaka (negation of this world) happens at the same time as
raise of brahmajnAna only and cannot be said to be stand negated even
before that event (past and present in traikAlika)

With some of the samples as seen above, it is indeed debatable whether MS
is aligned with Shankara.

/sv

>