[Advaita-l] Binary nature of Jnana

[Raghav Kumar Dwivedula]

Namaste Venkat ji

On Sun, 17 Jul, 2022, 6:44 am Venkatraghavan S via Advaita-l, <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

> Namaste Subbuji,
>
> On Sat, 16 Jul 2022, 10:43 V Subrahmanian via Advaita-l, <
> advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> >
> >  श्रवणादिद्वारेणापि *विद्या उत्पद्यमाना
> > प्रतिबन्धक्षयापेक्षयैव उत्पद्यते *।
> >
> > From this it is clarified that the vidya has to 'arise', utpadyate, which
> > alone signifies the mukti phala characterized by no more birth.  So the
> > pratibandha kshaya has to result in the 'arising' of the vidya, the
> > brahma/atmaakaara vritti. .
>
>
> In my view, I think this means that the vidyA that arises, does so if the
> pratibandha-s have been destroyed - उत्पद्यमाना विद्या
> प्रतिबन्धक्षयापेक्षयैव उत्पद्यते.
>
> It is this vritti that is articulated by
> > Vamadeva in those words. Bhashyakara says: गर्भस्थ एव च वामदेवः
> *प्रतिपेदे*
> > ब्रह्मभावमिति...  so 'pratipatti' of brahma bhaava is required, which
> > arises only upon the pratibandha kshaya.  Whether this pratipatti arises
> > automatically upon the garbhavasa bhoga is over or whether it is
> triggered
> > by a smarana of the sadhana that he has completed in the earlier birth is
> > not stated.
>
> The bhAShya says that in Vamadeva's case, vidyA arose in one birth because
> of the sAdhana that was done in another birth.
> गर्भस्थ एव च वामदेवः प्रतिपेदे ब्रह्मभावमिति वदन्ती जन्मान्तरसञ्चितात्
> साधनात् जन्मान्तरे विद्योत्पत्तिं दर्शयति ; न हि गर्भस्थस्यैव ऐहिकं
> किञ्चित्साधनं सम्भाव्यते ।
> I think this has a bearing on the question whether this arose simply
> because of pratibandha kshaya or because of smaraNa of the mahAvAkya and
> tat-tvam-padArtha.
>
> I think the discussion in this thread considered this need for
> > or otherwise of the 'smarana'.  I feel that the utpatti of vidya does not
> > happen nirnimitta; the saakshaat nimitta, immediate cause, being the
> > smarana, not volitional though, and not of 'all' that was heard, but that
> > essence that was accomplished short of the vidyotpatti then, and thus,
> > without the need for any upadesha afresh, the vidya, arose.
>
>
> 1) As the bhAShya states that vidyotpatti itself took place in the womb for
> vAmadeva, the vidyA itself cannot be a smaraNAtmikA - it must be
> anubhavAtmikA.
>
> 2) All pramA has to be pramANajanyA, especially so for the pramA of the
> aupaniShada-puruSha, which can only be known through the upaniShad. It
> cannot arise purely by chance.
>
> 3) From this, we can infer that the brahmapramA did not arise in the
> previous birth because the pratibandha blocked the pramA from arising.
>
> 4) Further, as the bhAShyakAra says, there is no exposure to the pramANa in
> the womb either.
>
> Therefore, we are left with the only option that the pramANa was recalled
> in the later birth and that recalled pramANa gave rise to the jnAna. That
> is, the pratibandha stopped the pramANa from giving rise to the jnAna in
> the previous birth, and stored the pramANa as samskAra. When the
> pratibandha was destroyed, that triggered the activation of the pramANa
> samskAra, leading to the recollection of the pramANa, which gave rise to
> the vidyA in vAmadeva when he was inside the womb.
>
> If the samskAra itself led to the vidyA, such a vidyA would be
> smaraNAtmikA, which would invalidate 1.
>
> If the pratibandha kshaya itself led to vidyotpatti, then the kAryakAraNa
> bhAva between pramANa and pramA would be invalidated (ie one could argue
> that vidyA itself can arise as Ishvara anugraha, without the need for
> sAdhana), and 2 would be invalidated.
>
> The smaraNatva here, I think, is limited to this samskArajanyatva of the
> pramANa, and need not extend to the recollection of how the sAdhana was
> conducted etc in the previous birth, - it can be limited to, as you say,
> the essence of the akhaNDa-vAkyArtha.
>

The effect of earlier janma's sAdhanas (this effect being short of the
pramA) is stored as samskAra. This samskAra in a later janma triggers the
arising of "the essence of the akhaNDa vAkyArtha" which in turn produces
pramA. I understand you to be talking of such a 2-step onset.

>
One question that arises here in this 2-step process is whether the
"essence of the akhaNDa-vAkyArtha" which functions as the sAxAt pramANa in
the later janma is in the form of atleast a few recollected words (shAbdam)
or it can be without any recollected words at all?

Because if the "essence" is not shAbda it's not clear how the following two
are different.

1. "Essence of akhaNDA vAkyArtha" being the pramANa in the later janma.
2. the samskAra (of all sAdhanas short of pramA) itself is sufficient to
mediate and trigger the delayed onset of the pramA at the appropriate time.

Like I said if 1. involves shabda recollection while 2. does not, then 1.
stands distinguished it from 2. Otherwise both would be called smaraNatmaka.

(We don't know exactly in the case of Sri vAmadeva but if we are willing to
examine Sri Ramana Maharshi's account, there seems to be no particular
shAbda recollection whatsoever. The artha sphuraNa actually seems to
precede the words he gave to express what happened in the awakening event
in Madurai. As Subbu ji put it - "Whether this pratipatti arises
> *automatically* upon the garbhavasa bhoga is over or whether it is
triggered
> by a smarana of the sadhana that he has completed in the earlier birth is
> not stated."
Sri Ramana Maharshi's example is of the 'automatic' kind if we treat the
accounts as authentic)

Om
Raghav










> I think this is
> > reasonable given the vyavadhana, time gap, between the SMN completed in
> the
> > earlier birth and the point of arising, pratipatti, of the brahmakara
> > vritti.
> >
> > In a different context, of vidyotpatti sans upadesha, in the case of
> > Prajapati, the bhashya says in the Brihadaranyaka 1.4.2:
> >
> > अत्र चोदयन्ति — कुतः प्रजापतेरेकत्वदर्शनं जातम् ? को वास्मा उपदिदेश ?
> > अथानुपदिष्टमेव प्रादुरभूत् ; अस्मदादेरपि तथा प्रसङ्गः ।How did Prajapati
> > attain the ekatva darshanam, who taught him, or without being taught it
> > arose?
> >
> > The reply is: नैष दोषः ; उत्कृष्टहेतूद्भवत्वाल्लोकवत् । यथा
> > पुण्यकर्मोद्भवैर्विविक्तैः कार्यकरणैः संयुक्ते जन्मनि सति
> > प्रज्ञामेधास्मृतिवैशारद्यं दृष्टम् , तथा
> > प्रजापतेर्धर्मज्ञानवैराग्यैश्वर्यविपरीतहेतुसर्वपाप्मदाहाद्विशुद्धैः
> > कार्यकरणैः संयुक्तमुत्कृष्टं जन्म ; तदुद्भवं चानुपदिष्टमेव
> > युक्तमेकत्वदर्शनं प्रजापतेः ।   Owing to his extraordinarily pure
> > antecedents he is endowed with extremely exalted body-mind complex
> > instrument. And due to this advantage vidya arose in him even untaught
> now.
> > Anandagiri Acharya explains:
> >
> > प्रजापतेः सुप्तप्रतिबुद्धवत्प्रकृष्टादृष्टोत्थकार्यकरणवत्त्वात्पू
> > *र्वकल्पीयपदपदार्थवाक्यस्मरणवतः* स्मृतिविपरिवर्तिनो
> > वाक्याद्विचार्यमाणाददृष्टसहकृतात्तत्त्वज्ञानं स्यात्....
> >
>
> This is a clincher I think! Essentially, with this one sentence Anandagiri
> AchArya has provided two reasons that I mentioned above - adRShTa
> sahakAritva (samskAra) + pUrvakalpIya pada-padArtha-vAkya smaraNa (the
> pramANa smaraNa I mentioned above).
>
> Thank you very much for sharing this reference.
>
> Kind regards
> Venkatraghavan
>
> >
> > Opinions welcome.
> >
> > warm regards
> > subbu
> >
> > >
> > > gurupAdukAbhyAm,
> > > --Praveen R. Bhat
> > > /* येनेदं सर्वं विजानाति, तं केन विजानीयात्। Through what should one
> know
> > > That, owing to which all this is known! [Br.Up. 4.5.15] */
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