[Advaita-l] Binary nature of Jnana

[Venkatraghavan S]

Namaste Chandramouli ji,

On Thu, 14 Jul 2022, 08:27 H S Chandramouli, <hschandramouli at gmail.com>
wrote:

>
> It is clearly brought out here that Realization is coterminous with
> hearing of the mahAvAkya. Hence hearing of the mahAvAkya again during the
> repetitious shravaNa is essential for Realization.
>
> Yes, agreed  >>,
>
> Nice to see agreement on a crucial issue. I will proceed from here to
> clarify  my understanding of VS.
>

Reg  << I don't think Vichara Sagara would disagree with this  >>,
>
> Here is where I think we are disagreeing. VS does indeed differ on this
> point. As per my understanding of VS,  Realization could occur much later
> than hearing of the mahavAkya, when the pratibandhakAs are removed.
>
I suspect you are drawing a distinction between aparoksha jnAna and
realisation. I am not.

When I said I agreed with realisation occuring coterminous with mahAvAkya
shravaNa, I was agreeing with realisation = aparoksha jnAna, arising
coterminous with mahAvAkya shravaNa.

I think you are using realisation = aparoksha jnAna + pratibandha nivRtti.

I don't mean pratibandha nivRtti occurs coterminous, as a rule, with
mahAvAkya shravaNa. I believe you are saying that as a rule, aparoksha
jnAna + pratibandha nivRtti occurs only coterminous with mahAvAkya shravaNa.

I am looking for some pramANa for such a rule, but I cannot seem to find
it. There are examples in shAstra where pratibandha nivRtti happens much
after mahAvAkya shravaNam, even where there is no opportunity for mahAvAkya
shravaNam when the pratibandha kshaya happens - e.g. vAmadeva, etc.


> As per my understanding, according to VS, aparOksha jnAna does take place
> for Shvetaketu when he hears the mahAvAkya first time round. But that
> aparOksha jnana is with pratibandhakAs. When his Guru repeats the mahAvAkya
> tattvamasi 9 times, each time it is preceded by different illustrations and
> reasonings. These serve to remove the different pratibandhakAs Shvetaketu
> was suffering from. It is this removal of all these  pratibandhakAs that
> lead to his aparOksha  jnAna with pratibandhakAs to be automatically
> converted to one without pratibandhakAs. Such change in the nature of
> aparOksha jnAna from one with pratibandhakas to one without them is not
> because of the Guru repeating the mahAvAkya  tattvamasi several times over,
> but because of the removal of pratibandhakAs due to the illustrations and
> reasoning given by the Guru. The inference would be that even without the
> repetition of the mahavAkya tattvamasi itself here 9 times over, such a
> change would still have taken place. This is my understanding of VS.
>
But wouldn't such an interpretation mean that the mahAvAkya repetition in
the shruti is superfluous?

Kind regards,
Venkatraghavan

>