[Advaita-l] ajnAna, tamo-guNa and aviveka

[Sudhanshu Shekhar]

Hari Om,

in chapter 14 of BhagvadgItA, Bhagvan Krishna says the following:

*सत्त्वं रजस्तम इति गुणाः प्रकृतिसम्भवाः । (14.5)* - the guNAs namely
sattva, rajas and tamas are born from prakriti.

Further, specifically in 14.8, in the case of tamo-guNa, Bhagvan says:

*तमस्त्वज्ञानजं विद्धि मोहनं सर्वदेहिनाम् ।*

Know the tamas to be born of ajnAna. This tamas deludes all embodied.

ShankarAchArya, while explaining 14.8 writes -

तमः तृतीयः गुणः अज्ञानजम् अज्ञानात् जातम् अज्ञानजं विद्धि मोहनं मोहकरम्
अविवेककरं सर्वदेहिनां सर्वेषां देहवताम् ।

He says that the third guNa i.e. tamo-guNa is born of ajnAna. And know that
it is tamo-guNa which causes aviveka.

In 14.9, Bhagvan says - *ज्ञानमावृत्य तु तमः प्रमादे सञ्जयत्युत ॥ ९ ॥*

AchArya writes - ज्ञानं सत्त्वकृतं विवेकम् आवृत्य आच्छाद्य तु तमः स्वेन
आवरणात्मना प्रमादे सञ्जयति उत प्रमादः नाम प्राप्तकर्तव्याकरणम् ॥

tamo-guNa covers jnAna i.e. viveka which is product of sattva. Tamo-guNa
can do it on account of being AvaraNa.

*We can see from the above that ajnAna is stated to give rise to tamo-guNa
which in turn gives rise to aviveka. The AvaraNa is by this tamo-guNa.*

It is clear that:

1. ajnAna and aviveka are not treated as synonyms by BhAshyakAra or by
Bhagvan Krishna.

2. tamo-guNa being bhAva-padArtha cannot be a product of
abhAvAtmaka-ajnAna. So, ajnAna has to be abhAva-vilakshaNa.

3. tamo-guNa being a bhAva-padArtha and this itself being stated as
AvaraNa, implies that - AvaraNa is not a linguistic use possible for
abhAvAtmaka-ajnAna.

Regards.
Sudhanshu Shekhar.