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

[H S Chandramouli]

Raghav Ji,

Reg  << There were earlier discussions on bhAvarupatvaM of tamaH and the
point that
Chandramouli ji made came up viz., it (avidyA) is bhAva-rUpA . A pramANa
too was supplied in that earlier discussion for this idea disambiguating
bhAva from bhAvarUpA. I would request Chandramouli ji or Subbuji to help
with this reference >>,

I am not able to recall the discussion. But actually it was not my
intention to bring in avidya into this discussion. I wanted to confine
myself ONLY to the observation on Darkness made by Sri Sudhanshu J. I had
quoted the relevant part in my first post on the topic. To his query as to
whether darkness is bhAva, I had observed that it is not bhAva, but
bhAvarUpa. Since he wanted a pramANa for the same, since I did not recall
any offhand , I offered as a possibility for his consideration  what came
immediately to my mind , namely the topic of sushupti, only in the limited
context of this discussion.  I would still confine myself to Darkness and
not extend the discussion from my side to avidya.

Regards

On Tue, May 7, 2019 at 4:52 PM Raghav Kumar Dwivedula via Advaita-l <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

> Namaste Sudhanshu ji
>
> Firstly thank you for an interesting discussion.
>
> You wrote -
>  If a view is held
> > that
> > > darkness is required to see these, then it is countered easily because
> > even
> > > in daytime, when a monochromatic light of wavelength 700 nm is flashed,
> > you
> > > would know it and hence darkness is no sine qua non for perception of
> > > photons of wavelength 380 to 740 nm.
>
> For the record -
> We don't by see a flashlight of a certain frequency if there is already
> intense enough light at that frequency. It needs a prior background of
> 'darkness' at that frequency for that particular light to become known.
>
> An example would be how stars, which are like mini flashlights are not
> visible during daytime due to absence of darkness on account of light
> scattering of sunlight  by air.
>
> On another note -
> There were earlier discussions on bhAvarupatvaM of tamaH and the point that
> Chandramouli ji made came up viz., it (avidyA) is bhAva-rUpA . A pramANa
> too was supplied in that earlier discussion for this idea disambiguating
> bhAva from bhAvarUpA. I would request Chandramouli ji or Subbuji to help
> with this reference.
>
> This discussion on tamaH was regarded as important enough for all our
> Acharyas from SrI PadmapAda  to SrI vidyAraNya go to great pains to
> establish that avidyA is not abhAvarUpA. So although the discussion might
> seem to be a hair splitting one, it's not so .
>
> Om
> Raghav
>
>
>
>
> > >
>
> On Tue 7 May, 2019, 1:22 PM Sudhanshu Shekhar via Advaita-l, <
> advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:
>
> > Hari Om Chandramouli ji,
> >
> > What is the pramana for the following?
> >
> > Darkness is not bhAva, it is bhAvarUpa. It is not a vastu  to be termed
> > bhAva. But since it conceals bhAvAs, it is termed bhAvarUpa.
> >
> > Chitsukhi clearly articulates darkness as द्रव्यान्तर. I quote --
> > "तमालश्यामलज्ञाने निर्बाधे जाग्रति स्फुटे। द्रव्यान्तर तमः कस्मात्
> अकस्मात्
> > अपलप्यते।।" It goes on to prove darkness as द्रव्यान्तर through various
> > logic.
> >
> > Regards.
> > Sudhanshu.
> >
> >
> > Mon 6 May, 2019, 20:42 H S Chandramouli via Advaita-l, <
> > advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:
> >
> > > Sudhanshu Ji,
> > >
> > > Reg  << there is no drArshtAntika here. It is an independent discussion
> > of
> > > Vivarana
> > > school as to whether darkness is bhava >>
> > >
> > > and
> > >
> > > << Apart from this, I am curious to know as to how darkness is not
> merely
> > > absence of photons having wavelength of 380-740 nm >>,
> > >
> > > I am not sure if the following makes sense in the current context. You
> > may
> > > like to consider.
> > >
> > > Darkness is not bhAva, it is bhAvarUpa. It is not a vastu  to be termed
> > > bhAva. But since it conceals bhAvAs, it is termed bhAvarUpa.  It
> pertains
> > > to jnAna, not artha. Presence or absence of photons or anything else
> does
> > > not make for presence  or absence of darkness. However their
> noncognition
> > > in the absence of anything else to hinder their cognition implies
> > > darkness.
> > >
> > > Regards
>
>