[Advaita-l] Both 'Nimitta' and 'Upaadana' Ajnanam in the Adhyasa Bhashya

[V Subrahmanian]

Namaste

In the Adhyasa Bhashya, at the beginning, is a sentence:

तथाप्यन्योन्यस्मिन्नन्योन्यात्मकतामन्योन्यधर्मांश्चाध्यस्ये*तरेतराविवेकेन*
अत्यन्तविविक्तयोर्धर्मधर्मिणोः* मिथ्याज्ञाननिमित्तः *सत्यानृते मिथुनीकृत्य ‘
अहमिदम्’ ‘ममेदम्’ इति नैसर्गिकोऽयं लोकव्यवहारः ॥

  "Nevertheless, due to mutual superimposition of the self and the non-self
and their attributes upon each other, caused by* false ignorance and
failure to discriminate between two absolutely distinct entities* - the
subject and the object - there arises this natural human behavior of mixing
truth and untruth, expressed as 'I am this' and 'This is mine'."

The primordial samsara is caused by Ajnana.  Shankara says that there are
two levels in this ajnana:  Basic ajnana that is the root cause, called
'nimitta' and an instrumental, immediate, cause that is called 'aviveka',
non-discrimination between the subject and object, real and unreal.

In the following audio, in a class expounding (in Tamil) the Adhyasa
Bhashya, renowned Vidwan Sri Mani Dravid Sastrigal, dwells at length on
these two terms used by Shankara. Sri Sastrigal parses the compound word
'mithyAjnAna' as *mithyA cha tat ajnAnam = that Ajnana that is
unreal/mithyA. *And justifies such a parsing by a detailed explanation. The
other aspect taken up for discussion is: while Shankara uses the term
'nimitta', how can that be given the meaning 'upAdAna'? The discussion
starts at about 15 minutes in the audio and goes up to 30 minutes in the
audio:


https://www.centreforbrahmavidya.org/acharyas/dr-mani-dravid-sastri/brahma-sutra-bhashya-0003-sutra-01-01-01-adhyasa-bhashya.html?filter=brahma-sutra-bhashya-adhyaya-1-pada-1&back=/acharyas/dr-mani-dravid-sastri.html?filter=brahma-sutra-bhashya-classes-of-dr-mani-dravid-sastri:back=/acharyas/sri-shankara-bhagavatpada.html&v=1.8



He cites the Amarakosha which has the general meaning: hetu/kAraNam =
cause.

Amarakosha

निमित्त नपुं।

कारणम्

समानार्थकाः *हेतु, कारण, *बीज, प्रमाण, निमित्त, प्रत्यय, इति, हि, यत्_तत्,
यतः_ततः

मृत्सुवर्णकारणा हि घटादयश्च रूचकादयश्च मृत्सुवर्णात्मानोऽनुभूयन्ते
 Bhamati.
(Pot, etc. have indeed clay, gold..as their cause)


The Kalpadruma Lexicon (not cited by MDS):

उपादानं, क्लीबम् ( उप + आङ् + दा + ल्युट् । ) स्वस्व-विषयेभ्य
इन्द्रियाकर्षणम् । तत्पर्य्यायः । प्रत्याहारः२ । इत्यमरः ॥

( ग्रहणम् । “स्यादात्मणोप्युपादा-नात् एषोपादानलक्षणा” । इति साहित्यदर्पणे१०
परिच्छेदः । ) हेतुः । इति त्रिकाण्डशेषः ॥

upAdAna can also mean simply a cause, hetu.  There is a usage too cited.


MDS highlights:  The segment  *इ**तरेतराविवेकेन** (non-discriminating)
already gives the nimitta kaaranam for adhyAsa.  Therefore the segment
**मिथ्याज्ञाननिमित्तः
has to be upAdAna kAraNam.  *

AdhyAsa has for its cause: 1. the unreal ajnAnam, mithyA ajnAnam, as the
upAdAna and 2. the aviveka, non-discrimination, as the nimitta.

There are some more points he elaborates that I have not stated in the
foregoing.  In any case, the discussion is very interesting.  He raises
very pertinent questions against his interpretation and answers them.

Om Tat Sat