[Advaita-l] Whether darkness is bhava - Vivarana Prameya Samgraha of Shri Vidyaranya

[Venkatesh Murthy]

Namaste

If you think deeply 100% Darkness is not bad like half Darkness. If it is
100% Dark you cannot see anything. You cannot see the snake even if it is
real. You cannot see the rope.

But in Half Darkness with a weak Light you start to see illusions. You see
a rope as a snake. You see a pillar as a man. And so on.

Zero Knowledge is not dangerous. A baby may try to play with a snake
because it has zero knowledge of snake. But half knowledge and incomplete
knowledge may cause fear in a man. Expert snake charmer has full knowledge
of snake and its moves and he is not afraid.



On Mon, May 6, 2019 at 8:57 PM Sudhanshu Shekhar via Advaita-l <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

> Hari Om V Sumrahmanian ji,
>
> In a plate of khichdi, suppose 10 grams of salt is used for an ordinary
> person. Now in one plate, there is 5 grams, in another 2 gram and in one
> plate, there is no salt at all. All three plates of khichdi are before me.
> We will taste and say one is bland, other is blander and yet other is
> blandest. It does not mean that bladness is some object. It is mere absence
> of salt. Similarly गाढ़ अंधकार, मंद अंधकार etc can be explained.
>
> However, this is not in connection with the sequence of logic used in VPS.
> And this is not what I intended to discuss. My idea was regarding
> understanding of sarva-Aloka-abhAva.
>
> Regards,
> Sudhanshu.
>
>
> On Mon 6 May, 2019, 12:57 Raghav Kumar Dwivedula via Advaita-l, <
> advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:
>
> > namaste sudhanshuji
> > the idea of sarvAlokAbhAva is not as infructuous as it seems. Other posts
> > too have pointed this out.
> >
> > The idea is -  are there grades of tamaH ? This question is a legitimate
> > one. It's common to consider ideas like semi darkness, total darkness,
> > partial darkness etc. If tamaH is abhAvarUpA, then someone could maintain
> > that there is less and less tamaH as more and more light sources light
> up.
> > And in that case there is *total* nAsha of tamaH *only* when all possible
> > light sources are present. When just a little light is there then someone
> > can still possibly maintain that there is partial or semi-darkness which
> > leads to rajju-sarpa bhrama etc. This idea of gradual lifting of the veil
> > of darkness (say, at dawn etc) corresponds to definition saying that
> > darkness (tamaH) is sarva-Aloka-abhAva. (your pratyaxa objection is dealt
> > with by claiming that darkness is only gradually removed and not *fully*
> > removed by a photon or two. ) Therefore such a tamaH is therefore removed
> > only by sarvAloka. And please also note that sarva-Aloka does not hold
> true
> > if just a few finite number of alokas are shining. This is the
> implication
> > of :
> > A1 , A2 etc are light sources.
> > ~A1 implies A1 is switched off.
> >
> > sarvAloka = (A1 AND A2 ...ad infinitum)
> > ~(sarvAloka) = ~A1 OR ~A2 OR .... etc.
> >
> > Even if one light source is inactive the condition for (sarvAloka)
> becomes
> > falsified - so there is sarvAloka-abhAva - and then there is some
> 'degree'
> > of darkness - that is the idea in this incremental model of darkness
> > removal.
> >
> >
> >  What about pratyaxa? Don't we see that even one light source removes
> > darkness? No. Not so fast. The counter or answer to this simplistic
> > pratyaxa objection by a possible supporter of tamaH = sarvAlokAbhAva,
> would
> > be that pratyaxa can also be used to say "its so dark in here" even when
> a
> > few photons from a zero watt bulb are flying around. The gradual lifting
> of
> > darkness at dawn etc., can also be called pratyaxa siddha. So its even
> > stevens. Its therefore a mere unquestioned assumption to say that a
> single
> > light source comprehensively removes all darkness. This is rarely the
> case
> > or we could just have a single zero watt bulb in any given room in our
> > respective residences. No need for so many LEDs and bulbs in a single
> room,
> > since darkness is totally destroyed by a little bulb!
> >
> > So it is an unquestioned assumption that a single (or some n number of)
> > photon(s) removes darkness - its not pratyaxa सिद्ध. Or even in the early
> > hours of dawn , we would have to say darkness is totally destroyed.
> Because
> > the pratyaxa statement/objection stems from assuming a priori that
> darkness
> > is of such and such nature.
> >
> > Coming back to VPS - it concludes saying that tamaH = sarvAlokAbhAva is
> > incorrect.  Such a putative definition of tamaH is asambhava and that
> would
> > also imply that such a tamaH is never going to be fully destroyed since
> its
> > प्रतियोगी viz., sarvAlokA is asambhava.
> >
> > To sum up.
> > X is defined as X-abhAva-pratiyogI.
> > That X which is nothing but X-abhAva-pratiyogI is negated by X-abhAva.
> > This is the usual nyAya language.
> >
> >  VPS frames the pUrvapaxa as the following.
> > Now its tricky, but replace X with tamaH defined as sarvAlokAbhAva
> > (remember we are analyzing the gradualist model of darkness. )
> >
> > Then tamaH is only unconditionally and fully negated by
> > sarvAloka-abhAva-abhAva which is sarvAloka itself.
> > ~~A = A
> >
> > All this was briefly hinted at in the hindi explanation of the VPS in the
> > relevant page dealing with the three models of examining whether tamaH
> can
> > be abhAva rUpa.
> >
> >
> > Another related query is - my guess is that our nyAya logicians were
> smart
> > enough to know the simple logical syllogism
> > ~(X AND Y) = ~X OR ~Y
> >
> > But I wonder if there is any reference to it or its application anywhere
> in
> > earlier texts?
> >
> > Apologies if I have repeated myself in this post.
> >
> > Om
> > Raghav
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Sat 4 May, 2019, 5:37 PM Sudhanshu Shekhar via Advaita-l, <
> > advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:
> >
> > > Hari Om,
> > >
> > > In Vivarana school, it is a well settled doctrine that darkness is not
> > > merely abhava of light. In order to prove that in Vivaran Prameya
> > Samgraha
> > > ("VPS"), Shri Vidyaranya gives following logic:-
> > >
> > > If darkness were to be abhava, then it can be either
> > > (a) aloka-matra-abhava OR
> > > (b) aloka-vishesha-abhava OR
> > > (c) sarva-aloka-abhava
> > >
> > > I am quite convinced of his arguments on first and second. However, his
> > > explanation for third one does not appear convincing. Let me explain
> his
> > > logic. He says, if darkness were to be sarva-aloka-abhava then unless
> > there
> > > is sannidhana (bringing about) of sarva-aloka, darkness cannot be
> > removed.
> > >
> > > This is his argument which appears bizzare.
> > >
> > > Let darkness be A1-abhava AND  A2-abhava AND A3-abhava .........AND
> > > An-abhava where n is last type of aloka. Like surya-aloka-abhava AND
> > > deepak-aloka -abhava AND lamp-aloka-abhava upto nth type of
> aloka-abhava.
> > >
> > > If this is the premise then to remove darkness, we don't have to have
> the
> > > sannindhana of A1 to An as claimed by V. There is a basic logic. ~(~A1
> > and
> > > ~A2 and ~An) = A1 or A2 or An... That is to say, the negation changes
> the
> > > "and" to "or".
> > >
> > > Thus, his statement that removal of sarva-aloka-abhava can only be
> > achieved
> > > by the sannidhana of sarva-aloka is incorrect. The removal of
> > > sarva-aloka-abhava is by kinchit-aloka and not by sarva-aloka.
> > >
> > > And thus his logic appears prima facie to be incorrect and
> inadmissible.
> > >
> > > Views of learned members are welcome.
> > >
> > > Regards,
> > > Sudhanshu.
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Archives: http://lists.advaita-vedanta.org/archives/advaita-l/
> > > http://blog.gmane.org/gmane.culture.religion.advaita
> > >
> > > To unsubscribe or change your options:
> > > https://lists.advaita-vedanta.org/cgi-bin/listinfo/advaita-l
> > >
> > > For assistance, contact:
> > > listmaster at advaita-vedanta.org
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Archives: http://lists.advaita-vedanta.org/archives/advaita-l/
> > http://blog.gmane.org/gmane.culture.religion.advaita
> >
> > To unsubscribe or change your options:
> > https://lists.advaita-vedanta.org/cgi-bin/listinfo/advaita-l
> >
> > For assistance, contact:
> > listmaster at advaita-vedanta.org
> >
> _______________________________________________
> Archives: http://lists.advaita-vedanta.org/archives/advaita-l/
> http://blog.gmane.org/gmane.culture.religion.advaita
>
> To unsubscribe or change your options:
> https://lists.advaita-vedanta.org/cgi-bin/listinfo/advaita-l
>
> For assistance, contact:
> listmaster at advaita-vedanta.org
>


-- 
Regards

-Venkatesh