[Advaita-l] [advaitin] Mandukya bhashya. Ignorance seed in sushupti

[Bhaskar YR]

praNAms Sri Dennis prabhuji
Hare Krishna

Just for the record, I would like to register my membership of the 1% brigade!


Ø     Me too 😊

to clarify Ṥaṅkara’s stance on them, principally using quotations from shruti, GIta, Gaudapada, Ṥaṅkara and Sureshvara to counter the many quotations expressing contrary or conflicting explanations.


Ø     Happy to note that you are choosy here and picking ONLY shankara bhagavatpAda and one later follower of shankara ( vArtikakAra Sri Sureshwara) to share your observations.  Just curious what makes you to think like this when plenty of later vyakhyAnakAra-s from their respective schools of thought contributing heavily on this issue in their respective works like bhAmati, paNchapAdika vivaraNa etc. !!??

In this volume, one of the aspects that I specifically address is the notion of avidyA as a really existent entity and I am afraid that I have to conclude, using reason and common sense, as well as the quotations, that what is meant by ‘ignorance’ is simply ‘lack of knowledge’.


  *   Those who are from 1% camp saying that ‘nobody would get realization by sleeping’ to say that sushupti is itself mOksha 😊 bhAshyakAra would not say that either.  But even though you are one with brahman ( there are variant explanations with regard to this ikyam based on 6th mantra of kArika) you are not aware of that ikyaM / ekatvaM, that lack of knowledge is called ‘jnAnaabhAva’ which is the avidyA in abhAva form that exists in sushupti.

Essentially, it is a language problem. So, yes, there is certainly ignorance in the deep-sleep state, simply because the mind is resolved and incapable of having knowledge about anything. But there is no mUlAvidyA, I’m afraid.


  *   But mUlavidyAvAdins have some explanations to this to justify their stand on the existence of bhAvarUpa mulAvidyA.  One of the main argument is, if you say in sushupti there is no avidyA, without any effort of our own you will become brahman so without any shAstra janita jnana avidyA on its own completely annihilated and you will become brahman !!  this leads to shAstrAnarthakya dOsha so we have to accept mulAvidyA is there in avyakta rupa even though vyakta adhyAsa (kAryAvidyA) is absent  there.

And I hope that many WILL be convinced if they read all of the arguments. Unfortunately, it will almost certainly be next summer at the earliest before it appears.


  *   Would like to read more on these clarifications from your desk.


(Incidentally, I do not consider myself to be an SSS adherent, even though I agree with him on these topics. There are quite a few others where I disagree!)


Ø     That is OK no problem prabhuji, just saw even Sri Kathirasan prabhuji also saying the same thing 😊  We, the socalled, asampradAyavAdin Sri SSS followers would happy to know even not so good friend of Sri SSS’s shuddha shankara prakriya in agreement with this very important aspect of Advaita vedAnta and saying mUlAvidyA as propagated by vyakhyAnakAra-s is not in line with shankara.

Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
bhaskar