[Advaita-l] Prasanth Netiji's Reply to Venkatraghavanji

[Venkatraghavan S]

Resending after removing the original response by Neti ji to meet the
list's size restrictions.

On Thu, 29 Aug 2024, 21:31 Venkatraghavan S, <agnimile at gmail.com> wrote:

> Namaste Michael ji,
> Thanks for sharing the response. I am just responding at a high level for
> the sake of brevity.
>
> 1) Our position is not that avidyA is *only* the material cause of
> adhyAsa, and not its efficient cause, as Sri Neti-ji has alleged. Rather,
> avidyA is *both* the efficient and material cause of adhyAsa. It is the
> material cause because the stuff that makes up adhyAsa is triguNAtmikA
> avidyA. It is also the efficient cause as a doSha, as a defect which gives
> rise to adhyAsa. To indicate that it is both, Shankaracharya uses the word
> nimitta, in the general sense of the cause, as opposed to exclusively as an
> efficient cause as Sri SSS and Hacker hold, or exclusively as a material
> cause as Neti ji has mistaken our position for.
>
> When Neti ji says "Therefore, when it is said in adhyasa bhashya that
> तमेतमेवंलक्षणमध्यासं पण्डिता अविद्येति मन्यन्ते, the correct implication of
> the word ‘wise/learned’ (i.e. पण्डिता) lies in not restricting the avidya
> to be only a “material cause”." we agree wholeheartedly. It is both a
> material and efficient cause.
>
> 2) Sri Neti-ji says " First of all, it is wrong to say that the words
> निमित्तकारण (in the sense of being an efficient or instrumental cause) and
> उपादानकारण (in the sense of being the material cause) are post-shankara
> developments." To clarify, I didn't say that the usage of nimittakAraNa and
> upAdAnakAraNa as efficient and material cause respectively is a post
> Shankara development, I said the *exclusive* usage to efficient and
> material cause respectively is a post Shankara development. Meaning -
> Shankara, Padmapada, Sureshvaracharya use the terms interchangeably.
> Sometimes using nimitta and upAdAna in a general sense of cause, sometimes
> specifically to refer to efficient and material causes respectively,
> sometimes using one word to refer to both types of causation, and rarely,
> using one to mean the other. The strict usage of the term nimittakAraNa to
> mean efficient cause *only* and upAdAna kAraNa to mean material cause
> *only* is a later development.
>
> The consequence of this is that Hacker's frequency based analysis of the
> word nimitta to Shankara's writings and conclusion that Shankara only
> referred to avidyA's efficient causation, is on shaky ground.
>
> 4) Sri Neti ji asks "Because, if we want to stick to the argument that
> nimitta as a word simply meant ‘cause’ elsewhere in BSB, let that also
> simply mean a ‘cause’ in the adhyasa bhashya phrase mithya-jñāna-nimitta –
> why is this force fitting it as ‘material cause’ ".
>
> Respectfully, we are also using it in the sense of "cause" - to include
> both material and efficient cause.
>
> a) There are several places in the bhAShya (references have been provided)
> where avidyA has been spoken of as the material cause. Hacker half agrees
> with this too but rejects such an interpretation on the basis of a
> frequency analysis of the word nimitta, which as shown, is flawed, when
> applied to Shankara's writings. So, this position is consistent with all
> those places in the bhAShya where the bIja shakti that is avidyA is spoken
> of as the unmanifest names and forms that goes on to become manifest during
> creation - and not a force fit as alleged. Now, Sri SSS may have a
> different interpretation of all those places in the bhAShya, but then each
> of those places will have to be explained in a different way. We are yet to
> see that.
>
> b) The first sentence of the adhyAsa bhAShya has already mentioned one of
> the nimitta-kAraNa-s for adhyAsa - the itaretara aviveka between Atma and
> anAtma - the non-discrimination between the self and the non-self. There is
> now an expectation of its upAdAna kAraNa. If there was no upAdAna kAraNa
> for adhyAsa, it should have been mentioned. If it was mAya different to
> avidyA, it should have been stated. The only words that can refer to the
> upAdAna kAraNa in that sentence are mithyAjnAna-nimittah. By doing so, both
> the efficient and material causes of adhyAsa are stated.
>
> c) Why did Shankara use the word mithyAjnAna nimitta then? and not
> mithyAjnAna upAdAna? Because Shankara wants to indicate that avidyA is
> *both* the material (as the constituting stuff of adhyAsa) and the
> efficient cause (as a defect that gives rise to it) of adhyAsa, and so he
> uses the word nimitta in the general sense of a cause here and in doing so,
> covers both type of causation.
>
> 5) I only skim read Sri Neti-ji's analysis of satkAryavAda, and in doing
> so, I didn't find anything there that I materially disagreed with. The only
> issue is that he seemed to quote satkAryavAda to argue against limiting
> avidyA to only be a material cause of adhyAsa, but that is castigating us
> for a position we have not adopted.
>
> Kind regards,
> Venkatraghavan
>
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