[Advaita-l] [advaitin] The nature of mUlAvidyA as per mUlAvidyAvAdins

[Jaishankar Narayanan]

>
> Dear Bhaskar ji,
>
> See below
>
> On Thu, Nov 24, 2022 at 2:48 PM 'Bhaskar YR' via advaitin <
> advaitin at googlegroups.com> wrote:
> praNAms
>
> Hare Krishna
>
> Sri SSS before taking the mUlAvidyA for refutation explains the nature of
> this in one of his works by extensively quoting from panchapAdika and
> panchapAdika vivaraNa by prakAshAtmayati.  But as per modern day
> vyAkhyAnakAra followers : this mUlAvidyA is saMskAra rUpa, something like
> jnAnAbhAva, kinchit avidyA, adyArOpita just for pedagogical purpose etc.
> The readers may note that at that point of time flexible versions like
> above which we are seeing today about mulAvidyA in this group were not
> there.  So what Sri SSS objecting is what is said in these works as below :
>
>
>
> svarUpa of avidyA :
>
>
>
> ( a) there exists in Atma Chaitanya which is anAdi, anirvachaneeya
>
> (b) It is dependent on beginningless chaitanyasatta hence it is anAdi
>
> ( c) it is neither sat nor asat hence anirvachaneeya
>
> (d) other names : nAma rUpa, avyAkrita, mAyA, prakruti, agrahaNa, avyakta,
> tamas, kAraNa, laya, shakti, mahAsupti, nidra, akshara, AkAsha etc.
>
> ( e) it has AvaraNa shakti hence AtmasvarUpa not known
>
> (f) it has vikshepa shakti as well capable of showing one thing for another
>
> (g) cause for the appearance of this world
>
>
>    JN: All the above are acceptable
>
>
> (h) this avidyA does not mean it’s an abhAva, nor agrahaNa nor saMshaya
> nor it is saMskAra (impressions of saMskAra)
>
>
>    JN: This avidyA manifests itself as jnana-abhAvA, agrahana, samshaya
> etc. So it can be called with all these names
>
>
> (i) it is jnana virOdhi, bhAvarUpa cause for all samsara
>
> (j) it exists in all the states invariably (in kAraNa rUpa in sushupti and
> kArya-kAraNa rUpa in waking and dream).
>
> (k) it is the material cause for adhyAsa,
>
>
>    JN: All the above are acceptable. I only want to add that this avidyA
> is as real or as false as the world it manifests. Since SSS followers have
> allergy to the word bhAvarUpa we can call it asat as defined by Bhasyakara
> in BG Bh 2.16.
>
>
> And to prove the existence of this type of avidyA and to prove this is not
> abhAva there are 5 different types of pramANa-s
>
> For this Ashraya is Atman/brahman
>
> And he also elaborately clarifies the vivaraNa stand with regard to
> subject matter of avidyA, how this avidyA removed, what is the svarUpa of
> vidyA which removes this avidyA, why and how does the jnAni see the duality
> even after the dawn of paramArtha jnAn, when this duality disappear etc.
>
>
>
> So, it is better to keep these things in mind when we are studying the Sri
> SSS’s refutation of mUlAvidyA.
>
>
>
> Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
>
> Bhaskar
>
>
>
> Source : Sri SSS’s Kannada book : Shankara Siddhaanta
>
>
>