[Advaita-l] Gaudapada and Shankara hold the waking objects to be mithya

[Bhaskar YR]

praNAms Sri ChandramouLi prabhuji
Hare Krishna

It is really painful to see even those who can read and understand Kannada misrepresenting Sri SSS's perspective with regard to avidyAlesha.  In the previous section 211, in the very first sentence itself Sri SSS clearly says avidyAlesha vAda is not acceptable and this avidyAlesha vAda is the baby of adhyAsOpAdAnamUlAvidyAvAdins.  And then he gives the synonyms to this term avidyAlesha like, avidyAcchaaye, avidyAgandha, avidyAvAsana, avidyA saMskAra.  And here itself rejects jnAni's saMsAritva and vipareeta pratyaya etc.  Despite this clear cut explanation Sri SSS talks about continuation of jnana bAdhita mithyAjnAna (misconception which is sublated by paramArtha jnana) so here adhyastha mithyAjnAna NOT mithyAjnAnalesha ( please let me know where he uses the word 'mithyAjnAnalesha').  And if you go to his sUtra bhAshya commentary in the footnote he clearly mentions this has been said keeping the jnAni's sashareeratvaM in mind but jnAni is ashareeri only as explained in 1-1-4 sUtra bhAshya.  So, please don’t say Sri SSS too saying and accepting avidyAlesha using some other nomenclature and at the same time refuting it.  

Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
bhaskar

Namaste Venkat Ji,

Reg  //  It also means that there is an elegant answer to people objecting to the jnAni continuing to have "avidyA" //,

I presume you mean *avidyAlesha* by this. Curiously the strongest opponent, Sri SSS, himself admits of *avidyAlesha* for the jnAni for some time after jnAna. Only he (Sri SSS) means  *mithyAjnAnalesha*,  mithyAjnAna  understood as  abhAvarUpa avidyA (absence of knowledge). The irony of the whole situation did not strike me till now though I came across this position of Sri SSS some time back . I am quoting below from his text, in kannada, ShAnkara  VedAnta  Sara,  section 212, pages 279/280 (Translaion from kannada to English mine)

//  Here the correct Sidhanta is – *avidyA is completely negated (bAdhita) by jnAna, meaning thereby it leads to the conviction that it really does not exist at all ; just this and not that jnAna destroys avidyA in the same way as an axe cutting a tree or fire burning wood*. Hence it is but natural that even after negation, avidyA/kAma/karma as also their Ashraya namely the sharIra, which is caused by prarabdhakarma,  continue to function as usual;  just like the spinning  wheel once set in motion  by the potter continues to rotate till it loses its momentum.  There is no defect in admitting the subsistence of mithyajnAna  etc for some time even after negation just as in the case of  the second moon/nachre-silver delusion/ दिङ्ग्मोह(delusion concerning directions) etc. There is no harm caused to the कृतकृत्यता of a jnAni by the continuance of such negated entities (
बाधितअनुवृत्ति) //.

The text by Sri SSS has also been translated to English along with commentary by DB Gangoli,  The Essential Adi Shankara.  See Section 212, pages 209/210.

Response of Sri SSS to some of your queries in your post are also covered in this section. They practically correspond, in my understanding, to the
*traditional* views as well.