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

[Jaishankar Narayanan]

Dear Bhaskar ji,

In Br Up Sambandha Bhasya bhasyakara says

स एष बीजाङ्कुरादिवदविद्याकृतः संसारः आत्मनि
क्रियाकारकफलाध्यारोपलक्षणोऽनादिरनन्तोऽनर्थ
इत्येतस्माद्विरक्तस्याविद्यानिवृत्तये
तद्विपरीतब्रह्मविद्याप्रतिपत्त्यर्थोपनिषदारभ्यते ॥

Further he says

कामादिदोषकर्मबीजभूताविद्यानिवृत्तये रज्ज्वामिव सर्पविज्ञानापनयाय
ब्रह्मविद्या आरभ्यते ॥

So avidyA is a bIja, cause. Sureshvara also talks about kArana-avidyA. This
kArana avidyA has both AvaraNa and vikshepa shakti which is revealed by
words like jnAna-abhAva, agrhaNa (AvaraNa) and samshaya, viparyaya
(vikshepa).

This kArana avidyA can never be atyanta-asat abhAva which is totally
opposed to Bhashya, shruti and yukti.

With love and prayers,
Jaishankar

On Tue, 29 Nov 2022, 17:25 Bhaskar YR, <bhaskar.yr at hitachienergy.com> wrote:

> praNAms Sri Jaishankar prabhuji
> Hare Krishna
>
>  (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
>
> >  As Sri SSS's clarifies most of these definitions of avidyA he has taken
> from the work called  panchapAdika vivaraNa ( the sub commentary written by
> prakAshAtmayati on paNchapAdika) published by Vijayanagaram Sanskrita
> Granthavali 1892),  So as per this work ( I don't have this original work)
> Sri Swamiji saying the avidyA advocated by vivaraNakAra is neither of these
> three forms of avidyA. When it is the avidyA as explained by bhAshyakAra
> like abhAva , agrahaNa and saMshaya and nothing else apart from this, why /
> what is the need for the one more avidyA which has the Ashraya in brahman
> and which itself subsequently manifests again as jnAnAbhAva, agrahaNa and
> saMshaya.  If you are saying jnAnAbhAva is the subsequent development
> (appearance) of mUlAvidyA what would be the primary nature (mUla rUpa) of
> this avidyA??  What would be the difference between tUlA vidyA and
> mUlAvidyA and how these two get completely eradicated when later is an
> positive entity??  More of this later when time permits. Anyway the
> flexible version of avidyA that you are providing above if at all found in
> originals kindly provide it.
>
> Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
> bhaskar
>