[Advaita-l] Partlessness of Brahman and Maya

[Sudhanshu Shekhar]

Hari Om Praveen ji,

sorry for late reply.

The sequence thus is clear. It is anAditva => niravyavatva => avyayatva.

Now, question arises, as you rightly put, that if anAditva, through
nirvayavatva, is enough to lead to avyayatva, then why at all would Bhagvan
give another factor of nirgunatvaat.

We can see the answer in Gita Bhashya 2.20 - शाश्वत इति अपक्षयलक्षणा
विक्रिया प्रतिषिध्यते । शश्वद्भवः शाश्वतः । न अपक्षीयते स्वरूपेण,
*निरवयवत्वात्* । नापि गुणक्षयेण अपक्षयः, *निर्गुणत्वात्* । अपक्षयविपरीतापि
वृद्धिलक्षणा विक्रिया प्रतिषिध्यते — पुराण इति । यो हि अवयवागमेन उपचीयते स
वर्धते अभिनव इति च उच्यते । अयं तु आत्मा निरवयवत्वात् पुरापि नव एवेति
पुराणः ; न वर्धते इत्यर्थः.

Thus, we get an insight to the mind of BhashyakAra. There is something
called swarUpeNa apakshaya and there is something called guNakshayeNa
apakshaya. Both are apakshaya (vyaya). So, two factors have to be
necessarily postulated to cover the two types of vyaya. Anandagiri Tika
includes the third one also - स्वभावत: व्यय:. I am not including that for
want of the mention in BhAshya.

Noticeable thing is thus two possibilities:-

(i) When a stuff is niravayava AND with gunas. Then it will be swrupeNa
avyaya but it will not be avyaya with respect to guNakshaya. I am sure
AkAsha fits in here as per bhAshya.

(ii) An object which is nirguNa but sAvayava. I cannot think of anything
which fits in here. So this possibility is rejectable.

Thus, MAyA/AvidyA/AkAsha which are held to be niravayava by BhAshyakAra
will have to be swarUpeNa avyaya but not guNakshayeN avyaya.

Now, this transpires through an objective analysis of bhAshya vAkyas. But I
am not at all sure as to what exactly is the meaning of swarUpeNa avyaya.

The premise which comes through Anandagiri Tika is that an object can have
absence of vyaya owing to being niravayava AND owing to being nirguNa and
yet it can have vyaya swabhAvatah. Can you think of any such thing. I fail
here.

Venkataraghavan ji, V Subramanian ji. I would appreciate your comments here.

Sudhanshu.







On Sun, Jun 16, 2019 at 4:37 PM Praveen R. Bhat <bhatpraveen at gmail.com>
wrote:
>
> Namaste Sudhanshuji,
>
> I've flipped the reply sequence for continuity and included your next
reply mail here as well...
>
> On Sun, Jun 16, 2019 at 1:12 PM Sudhanshu Shekhar <
sudhanshu.iitk at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> So the avyatva is through niravayavatva and not through "अजो नित्य:"
Shruti. There is no occasion to bring niravayavatva if it precedes anAditva
because the shloka itself uses anAditva. One can directly use Shruti अजो
नित्य: from Shloka.
>
> But so does the anAdi that hetu works directly. If first vikAra is not
possible, then no other or the last vikAra is not possible. Anyway, later,
he states what you say as the corollary! Shankaranandi is using two
meanings for anAdi. It has to be seen which reasoning is given with what.
Strangely enough, Bhashyotkarshadipika is using both. घटादेः आदिमत्वेन
सावयवत्वाद्व्ययः दृष्टः, आत्मनस्तु अनादित्वेन निरवयवत्वाद् अवयवद्वारको
व्ययः न सम्भवति। So I shall drop this line of argument. Thanks for
indulging me.
>>
>> Not so. p=>q does not mean ~p=>~q. It rather means ~q=>~p. So
anAditva=>niravayatva leads to sAvayavatva=>Adimatva but does not lead to
Adimatva=>sAvayavatva.
>
> Oh, yes! Sorry I messed up that line; I didn't think of the consequence
that follows as below:
>
>>
>> On the contrary, if niravayavatva=>anAditva is taken then it will lead
to Adimatva=>sAvayavatva which will contradict with AkAsha case.
>
> True, thanks for pointing out the error. Now, lets take your sequence of
niravayavatvAt --> avyaya. It will lead to vyayavatvAt sAvayavatvam.
Doesn't AkAsha have any vyaya?!
>
>>
>> निरवयवत्वादेव सावयवद्वारकस्य निर्गुणत्वाद्गुणद्वारकस्य च व्ययस्याभावेऽपि
स्वभावतो व्ययः स्यादित्याशङ्क्याह -- परमात्मेति.
>>
>> If you see the Anandagiri Tika, it is clear that the sequence is
anAditva=>niravayavatva=>avyayatva. Isn't it?
>
> Doesn't necessarily look so, as he doesn't use anAditvam at all. I looked
through a couple of other TIkAs. The corollary doesn't seem to be working
for many perhaps because आदि meaning is different for each and in-context.
It needs further study.
>
> ... but let that be; lets go to your main contention which is
vyaya/avyaya as I understand, especially in the case of Maya /avidyA ...
Anandagiritika is saying निरवयवत्वात् सावयव-द्वारकस्य व्ययस्याभावेपि
स्वभावतो व्ययस्स्यात्। So vyaya may be possible even if something is
niravayava which I didn't say earlier, but Bhagavan Tikakara does seem to
say be it via pUrvapakSha.
>


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