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

[sreenivasa murthy]

 Dear friends,The states of waking, dream and deepsleep are of vyaBicairatasvarUpawhere as aham which is devoid of limiting adjuncts  and which is atman aloneis of avyaBicaritvasvarUpa. When the states appear and disappear their contents also appear and disappear. Sruti declares : vAcAramBaNaM vikArO nAmadhEyam ||
Where is vidya, where is avidya, where is mulavidya?They are figments of iimagination and products of unbriddled intellectual speculation.This is the basic and final truth.
You can draw your own conclusions.Sreenivasa Murthy.


    On Thursday, 29 June, 2023 at 12:14:36 pm IST, V Subrahmanian <v.subrahmanian at gmail.com> wrote:  
 
 Shankaracharya has on several occasions questioned: How can abhava, absence, produce a positive effect, bhaava? 
This is another strong logic from Shankara that debunks the mistaken idea of jnanabhava, a term Shankara himself has used. The positive effect of bondage, the result of avidya, in its various forms is there for everyone to experience, even described graphically by Shankara in many places and the remedy prescribed by the Shruti itself, all go to emphasize the bhava rupatva of avidya. 
regardssubbu 
On Thu, 29 Jun 2023, 12:02 pm Venkatraghavan S, <agnimile at gmail.com> wrote:

Dear Dennis ji,

"Can I ask what, other than mind, would be the means of non-perception in suShupti?"Ultimately, it is the sAkshi that is the witness of both knowledge and ignorance - in all three states - and the sAkshi needs no other means to witness entities that are sAkshi bhAsya. So, to answer the question, the witness of ignorance in deep sleep is the sAkshi and it needs no other means to cognise ignorance.
"And what is ‘non-perception of truth’ other than lack of realization in the mind following shravaNa-manana?"The position taken in avidyA as bhAvarUpa is that avidyA is something other than the absence of knowledge, it is a transactionally existent entity. 
Take this passage from Br Up Bh 1.4.7 for example. यथा गृह्यमाणाया अपि शुक्तिकाया विपर्ययेण रजताभासाया अग्रहणं विपरीतज्ञानव्यवधानमात्रम् , तथा ग्रहणं ज्ञानमात्रमेव, विपरीतज्ञानव्यवधानापोहार्थत्वाज्ज्ञानस्य ; एवमिहाप्यात्मनोऽलाभः अविद्यामात्रव्यवधानम् ; तस्माद्विद्यया तदपोहनमात्रमेव लाभः, नान्यः कदाचिदप्युपपद्यते ।
Here the opponent is asking if the self is ever evident why is it not perceived today? To this Shankara says - 
Just like the shell, which even when one continues to see it (गृह्यमाणाया अपि), is not seen (अग्रहणं) because of its mistaken perception as the silver appearance, which serves as an obstruction for the perception of the shell (विपरीतज्ञानव्यवधानमात्रम्), and its attainment is merely its perception, for the right cognition of the shell serves in the removal of the obstruction of mistaken knowledge - here too, the obstruction to the attainment of the self is ignorance alone, and the attainment is merely its removal through knowledge, and nothing else is plausible.
1) The above passage raises the question - if ignorance was simply the absence of knowledge, how does it serve as an obstruction to the self effulgent self? A thing which is self effulgent, by definition, needs no second thing for its perception. Thus, all else being equal, the knowledge of the self is not needed for the  perception of the self. That being the case, the absence of the knowledge of the self cannot act as an obstruction for the knowledge of the self-effulgent self either.
2) It is for this reason - to explain why an otherwise knowable entity is not known, that the idea of ignorance as a positive obstruction was postulated - and such a postulation exists in the work of the bhAShyakAra himself as seen in the above passage through the use of the word  व्यवधानम्.
How can the word व्यवधानम् in the bhAShya meaning obstruction, be used to denote the absence of knowledge? An obstruction has to have some presence. A non existent thing cannot obstruct anything in the literal sense.It is not a figurative usage either, because the absence of knowledge can be figuratively referred to as an obstruction in the cognition of an object only where that object is not self evident (e.g. "I didn't know he had a car"), not when dealing with self evident things like the self, lamps etc ("how did I know the room had a lamp? It was obvious, it was shining").
3) Similarly, the word अपोहन in the text, meaning removal, is more appropriate when dealing with things being removed have some presence. The usage of the ablative in  तस्माद्विद्यया तदपोहनमात्रम् - the removal of ignorance by knowledge - further strengthens this. This indicates that knowledge is the means for the removal of ignorance. If ignorance is the absence of knowledge, knowledge wouldn't be an instrument for the removal of ignorance, knowledge itself would be the absence of ignorance.
Anyway I don't think we need to rekindle this debate which has been going on for centuries and will continue to do so for centuries, but to say that this idea of a positive ignorance is purely a figment of later commentators and is non-existent in the works of the bhAShyakAra, is a contention not supported by facts.
Regards,Venkatraghavan
On Wed, Jun 28, 2023 at 2:33 PM <dwaite at advaita.org.uk> wrote:


Dear Subbu-ji,

 

The points I listed were intended to be simple reasoning, not summarizing the teaching of Ṥaṅkara. And, as you know, this does say that teaching cannot contradict experience or reason.

 

Can I ask what, other than mind, would be the means of non-perception in suShupti? And what is ‘non-perception of truth’ other than lack of realization in the mind following shravaNa-manana? It is the giving of new names to situations that is precisely the reason why new meanings and interpretations are invented by later writers.

 

Best wishes,

Dennis

 

 

Dear Dennis ji, 

 

The above points, numbered upto 4, is not the correct depiction of Gaudapada and Shankara in the Mandukya:  There is a situation called 'tattva agrahanam', non-perception of the ultimate Reality, Truth, the ontological Brahman, which is there in sushupti.  This non-perception, along with the perception of duality is there in waking and dream.  Thus, the non-perception of truth is the avidya that Gaudapada and the Bhashya refer to when they say avidya in deep sleep.  It is not mere 'non-perception/not knowing things/lack of sensory knowledge' due to the absence of mind in deep sleep. 

 

regards

subbu    

   
   -  
   - On awakening or going into dream, the mind becomes active again and continues the related activities (external perception in waking; internal, memory-related in dream).
   - If the mind was unenlightened before going to sleep, it is still unenlightened afterwards! No surprise there, then! 
   - You don’t ‘become Brahman’ in deep-sleep – you are already Brahman, all of the time! You just lack the knowledge.

 

Best wishes,

Dennis

 


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