[Advaita-l] [advaitin] AvidyA is jnAna-virOdhi not jnAna-abhAva

[VIJAY KUMAR]

 Thank you Jai shankar ji
The first sentence I have a comment.
"Jnana Abhava" . Jnana is "Sat" and there is no "Abhava" state. Bhagavad Gita Chapter 2 Sloka 16. "Nasato Vidyate Bhava ha, Na Abhavo Vidyate satah"
नासतो विद्यते भाव:, नाऽभावो विद्यते सत:,  उभयोरपि दृष्टोऽन्त: , त्वनयो तत्वदर्शिभि:  
So once a Jnani, is ever a Jnani. Bhagavan Says
Knowledge of "para" is meant here, not "apara"

Hari om
Vijay Kumar
    On Tuesday, December 6, 2022 at 10:25:54 AM EST, Jaishankar Narayanan <jai1971 at gmail.com> wrote:  
 
 Namaste,
I have written a short note on why AvidyA is jnAna-virOdhi and not jnAna-abhAva. I have tried to give relevant references from shankara bhAshyas to support the points being made. The learned members of this group may add to these as appropriate. I hope this will help the mumukshus in ascertaining what is traditional teaching as taught by sampradayavits including my own Guru Swami Dayananda Saraswati ji, in contrast to recent distortions which lead to anirmoksha-prasanga.
I have not been active online for many years now. So these points may have already been discussed in the past but I hope punarukti is not a dosha in vedanta.
I am giving below the summary from the note. The entire note can be downloaded fromhttp://www.aarshavidyavarshini.org/downloads/AvidyaIsJnanaVirOdhi.pdf
Summary


1. avidyA is vidyAvirodhi and notvidyA-abhAva. I give supporting statements from the bhAshya.

2. avidyA is mentioned as a covering inmultiple places in both Gita and bhAshyas. bhAshyakAra himself argues thatcovering implies a covered by and covered entities and a covering cannot beabhAva. so avidyA cannot be an abhAva.

3. bhAshyakAra does not accept any abhAvaat all. He says abhAva is just bhAva-pratiyogi (opposed to existence) andcannot have any vishesha (qualities and activities etc.). As soon as youassociate it with any quality or activity it is to be taken as bhAva only. SojnAna-abhAva also is only bhAvarupa as per bhAshyakAra. Also jnAna-abhAvaproponents actually use avidyA-kalpita, avidyA-adhyaropita etc. associatingtheir abhAva with activities making it a bhAvarupa only.

4. avidyA is spoken of as bIja (seed),kAraNa / hetu (cause) in multiple places. A kAraNa can never be an abhAvaaccording to bhAshyakara and even common sense, as something cannot be evenperceived if the locus is not bhAvarupa, let alone something being created /projected from nothing.

5. bhAshyakAra in Mandukya kArikA bhAshyaand Br Su bhAshya 3.2.9 explicitly states that if avidyA bIja (causal state) isnot accepted in sleep and pralaya then individual jIvas cannot re-emerge fromsleep / pralaya and mukta-purushas can have rebirth and if this seed is absentthen jnAna will not have anything to burn and become useless. jnAna-abhAvaproponents have gone against this and made this bIja as abhAva. 

6. bhAshyakAra in Br Up 3.8.12 bhAshya, inBr Su Bh 3.2.9 and BG 14.3 bhAshya refers to avidyA as an upAdhi. This upAdhican never be an abhAva as it is accepted as asat / mithyA.

7. Finally bhAshyakAra says avidyA /ignorance is experienced and has to be included amongst names and forms and soit cannot be abhAva.

with love and prayers,

Jaishankar


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