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

[Venkatraghavan S]

Namaste Sudhanshu ji,
I will address the point on chitsukhi now - I will come back to you on
shukla and kRShNa gati-s from the gIta a little later.


> 1. //Further, we must remember that chitsukhAchArya himself is arguing for
> tamah being bhAvarUpa, and is arguing against AlokAbhAva! We can't simply
> quote him on a side matter without acknowledging his position on the main
> issue under discussion.// A difference appears to have been made on black
> colour and darkness and hence I quoted. More apt would have been to refute
> it then and there that even black is a colour and not merely absence of
> white - even in vyavahara. Absence of this direct refutation led to my
> quoting him on this issue.
>

Regarding the specific point as to why chitsukhAchArya chose to refute it
the way he did, let us examine the context of where the statement occurs.

chitsukhAchArya states the siddhAnta position through a verse - "It
(darkness) is black like the tamAla leaf" - when there is clear,
uncontradicted perception of (darkness) as such, how can it suddenly be
argued that it is not some substance?". Everyone has the cognition "it is
as dark as the tamAla leaf".

Someone may raise a doubt that even in the absence of such a perception,
one could have an illusory cognition. To this, chitsukhAchArya argues that
without it appearing as such, no vyavahAra (calling it black like the
tamAla leaf) would be possible.

Another doubt is raised - calling darkness as such is only figurative
usage, just like the vyavahAra of calling a cloth to be black in colour, on
account of it being not white.

There are two ways one can refute this argument:
1) Prove that the example is not figurative.
2) Concede that the example is a case of figurative usage, but that the
usage in the dArShTAnta is not figurative.

If chitsukhAchArya had simply said - black is a bhAvarUpa padArtha - it
would not be helpful in any of the two ways and thus it would not be
addressing the main bone of contention of the opponent at all.

1) Saying that the colour black is bhAvarUpa does not prove that someone
somewhere sometime is not going to call the cloth black figuratively.

2) Saying that the colour black is bhAvarUpa does not prove that usage in
the dARshTAnta is not figurative. Because, the intent of chitsukhAchArya is
not to make the argument -  blackness is bhAvarUpa, darkness is blackness
and hence darkness is bhAvarUpa. That would be a very weak argument.
Darkness and blackness are two different things, a black pot is not seen in
darkness, and when it is seen in the day, there is no darkness.

Instead, what chitsukhAchArya does is to concede that there could be
situations where a cloth can be called black figuratively.
However, he distinguishes the dRShTAnta from the dArShTAnta and says that
the situation with darkness is not figurative, because one can only claim
it to be figurative if there is a pramANa that proves the mukhya, the
direct/literal connotation is not possible. However there is no bAdhaka
pramANA for the mukhya vRtti.

However, please note - by this much, neither chitsukhAchArya, nor anyone in
the discussion thus far, is making the point that darkness and black colour
are the same. Therefore, the relevance of the following paragraph is
unclear:

>
> Moreover, darkness and black colour are indeed different. Darkness can be
> felt despite there being light if there are no objects such as in outer
> space. Imagine yourself in outer space without anything around you. Even
> the space shuttle. There will be darkness all around. However, black
> 'colour' is always of some object and it is a resultant of the intrinsic
> property of the object AND the property of incident light AND the type of
> eye. So an object having so called black 'colour' for we trichromat humans
> can pretty well be having some definite 'colour' to a pentachromat animal.
> Thus, the concept of colour is different and concept of darkness is
> completely different. Whether a trichromat or pentachromat, they will see
> darkness only in outer space. Therefore, it is not out of place to quote
> Chitusukhi in that regard.
>
>
Indeed. The two are different. However, in the earlier email you were
quoting the chitsukhi not to say that darkness and blackness are different
(for no one had said so in the first place), but to say that blackness is
abhAvarUpa and hence the translation of rUpa as shuklakRShNAdi in the
brihadAraNyaka bhAShya implies that the Ayatana can be abhAvarUpa.

To quote from that email (
https://lists.advaita-vedanta.org/archives/advaita-l/2019-May/052215.html):
"For example Aditya adhidaivata refers to rupa such as shukla and krishna.
Now krishna is absence of shukla as admitted even by Chitsukhi. So no claim
can be made that adhidaivata must necessarily refer to a positive entity."

It was that connection (abhAvarUpatva of blackness with abhAvarUpatva of
Ayatana) that I was addressing in my email earlier today by saying that
chitsukhi does not teach the abhAvarUpatva of blackness at all.

Kind regards,
Venkatraghavan