[Advaita-l] Nirguna Brahman as the source of TriguNa Avyaktam

[Sudhanshu Shekhar]

V Subramanian ji,

//Actually it is not the 'birth' of Maya but only its manifesting itself at
the beginning of creation. //

Are not these mere words? Whether manifesting or born -- even a bit of
happening anything -- will result into violation of nishkriya-tva of
Brahman. No matter how many words we use, at the root point, there will
always remain the charge of violation of nishkriya-tva of Brahman. I have
not been able to solve this issue and therefore there is no intellectual
satisfaction either.

Sudhanshu.

On Thu 20 Jun, 2019, 04:37 V Subrahmanian via Advaita-l, <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

> This is a topic related to the ones being discussed in this forum now. In
> the Brahma sutra bhashya 2.1.1 Shankara cites a few smriti texts. These two
> quotes are especially interesting since the first one says 'TriguNa Avyakta
> (maya) emerges from Brahman' and the second one says 'Avyakta resolves
> (laya) in the Purusha, Brahman that is Nirguna:
>
> ‘ तस्मादव्यक्तमुत्पन्नं त्रिगुणं द्विजसत्तम’ इत्याह ; तथान्यत्रापि ‘
> अव्यक्तं पुरुषे ब्रह्मन्निर्गुणे सम्प्रलीयते’
>
> While it is wide knowledge that in Advaita, the saguna Ishwara is actually
> Brahman with Maya as upadhi, here we see that even maya has its source in
> Brahman and its abode of resolution as in Brahman.
>
> Bhagavatpada has said elsewhere in the BSB that in pralaya the entire world
> of creatures rest in that 'shakti'. And from the above we see that even
> this shakti rests in Nirguna Brahman.
>
> Also, mAyA is called 'ajaa', unborn. A question arises as to such being the
> case, why is it stated above that avyakta, another name of maya, is 'born'
> of Nirguna brahman?
>
> One reply is: Actually it is not the 'birth' of Maya but only its
> manifesting itself at the beginning of creation. It requires an abode to
> rest, exist, during pralaya and that is NB. Throughout srishti, sthiti and
> laya, NB has no active role, being nishkriya. 'svabhaavastu pravartate' -
> by the sheer presence, sannidhi maatrena, (मया अध्यक्षेण प्रकृतिः
> सूयते....) drawing from the consciousness of NB, maya/avyakta creates,
> sustains, and withdraws the creation. That way, maayaa is the pariNAmi
> upAdana kaaraNam for the creation and Brahman is the vivartopAdAna kAraNam.
> The former kaaraNatva is required for bandha-moksha vyavahara and the
> latter is required for tattva drishti and thereby moksha.
>
> Om Tat Sat
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