[Advaita-l] Can the self be called anirvachaniya?

[jaldhar at braincells.com]

Thankyou to all who replied.

On Wed, 11 Sep 2024, V Subrahmanian wrote:

> Here is an incident related to the 34th Jagadguru Sri Chandrashekhara
> Bharati Mahaswamin:
> 
> https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.127155/page/n107/mode/2up?q=c
> art


On Wed, 11 Sep 2024, H S Chandramouli wrote:

> In advaita SiddhAnta, anirvachanIya is not used in the sense of inacapable
> of being defined in words. It is to be understood as inacapable of being
> categorized as * सत् (sat)* or *other than सत् (sat)*. The Bhashya, in thr
> places, states as below
>
> // तत्त्वान्यत्वाभ्यामनिर्वच
>
> // tattvAnyatvAbhyAmanirvachanIya //.

>From the link Subrahmanian ji sent.

"But regarding the world, the Vedanta was equally emphatic that it was 
anirvachaniyA or _incapable_of_being_explained_in_words_" (my emphasis)

I don't think it is difficult two reconcile the two views.  According to 
the conventional rules of logic you cannot decide if a proposition is true 
or false unless you know it.  Now what does "know" mean?  That is the crux 
of the matter.

On Wed, 11 Sep 2024, V Subrahmanian wrote:

> 
> Please read from the last paragraph on p.104 of this book.  It has a telling
> lesson on how both the jagat and Brahman are both beyond speech:
> anirvachaniyam.
> Also in the Bh.gita Bh. 13. 12 Shankara dwells at length on this topic. A
> detailed post on this is here:
> 
> https://adbhutam.wordpress.com/2010/04/21/vedapraamaanya/

This is an informative post.  Although it is presented as a rejoinder to a 
dvaita critique, the issue at hand is important to even the sadhaka who is 
not interested in polemics and that is why I am bringing my views before 
the scrutiny of the list.

Shruti does in fact make positive statements about Atma/Brahman. I 
mentioned before atha nAmadheyaM satyasya satyamiti.  The word nAmadheya 
is significant.  Namadheya or Namakarana is the samskara performed 11 days 
after a child is born when they are given a name.  It is also a technical 
term in Mimamsa for a definition.  I.e. mantrabrahmaNayorveda nAmadheyam 
"Veda is defined as Mantras and Brahmanas."  ekam advitiyam establishes a 
jati with only one member. ayaM Atma brahma illustrates kriya. sat chit 
ananda, satyam jnanam anantam etc.are descriptions of gunas.  yato vA 
imAni bhUtani etc.is a sambandha.


But there is no contradiction because as you wrote:

"One should make a difference between the knowledge of the ‘existence’ of 
Brahman and the knowledge of the ‘svarUpa’, essential nature, of Brahman."

To define means only to postulate the existence of a thing.  To quantify 
is to know its svarUpa and for Brahman as you say it is beyond the scope 
of words.

On Wed, 11 Sep 2024, Bhaskar YR via Advaita-l wrote:

> I am humbly requesting you to elaborate this.  Don’t we say Atman is
> Aprameya??

Yes.  But we also say that Atman is knowable.  Some new age interpreters 
try to claim Advaita Vedanta teaches agnosticism (which is amusing because 
agnostic literally translates to ajnani.)  There have been agnostic 
philosophies in Bharatiya tradion but Vedanta is emphatically not one of 
them.  A pramana is a means of knowledge and if Atman is not amenable to 
means of knowledge than how can we know it?  I maintain that the seeming 
paradox is only due to an imprecise use of "know".

>  How can it be knowable as Vishaya when it's svarUpa is
> nirvishesha??  Yato vAchO nivartante aprApya manasa saha, na tatra
> chakshurgacchati na vAggacchati nO manaH shruti says so. Yes bhAshyakAra
> says saMskrutaM manaH Atma 'darshane' karaNaM.  But here also
> bhAshyakAra does not emphasize about 'knowing it in words'.  You mean to
> say this knowable Self is realizable of the self or literally knowable
> through words but not definable by words ??  Kindly clarify.

I am saying Atmman can be defined or labeled by words but cannot be 
quantified by even millions or billions of words.


On Wed, 11 Sep 2024, Bhaskar YR via Advaita-l wrote:

> One more doubt erupted just now, in the adhyAsa saMbhAvana bhAshya,
> there is a question :  that the innermost self is not an object, as
> vedAntin speaks about non-objectness of the self, which is the outside
> the scope of the notion of 'thou'.  In the reality transfer
> (anyOnyAdhyAsa) one object only on another object which is right in
> front of him is possible.  Under these conditions SELF being non-object
> at all how then can there be reality transfer of objects and their
> attributes on the inner self which is unobjectifiable ??  for this
> bhAshyakAra contextually explains, the inner self is NOT invariably a
> non-object, for it is an object of the notion that of 'I' (asmat
> pratyaya gOchara) and the innermost self is known to be evident in
> immediate experience.  Sri Jaldhar prabhuji might have said that the
> self is knowable in this line of thinking!!??

We all are aware that Vedanta teaches that satya is known in two 
dimensions vyavahara and paramartha.  From the vyavaharik standpoint there 
is no question that the Self is known.  vyAsopahve jaladharasharmo'ham. 
However this knowledge is limited through the interference of maya.  When 
through jnana mAya is dispelled, the higher truth that the Self is 
limitless and encompasses all things and all times.  This Self is also 
known. aham brahmAsmi.  So the statement anirvachaniyo'ham doesn't make 
sense.  There is never a situation where the Self is not known, only the 
"amount" of Self.


On Wed, 11 Sep 2024, Sudhanshu Shekhar via Advaita-l wrote:

>
> Advaita Siddhi also says exactly what you said - नहि
> निरुक्तिविरहमात्रेणानिर्वाच्यत्वं ब्रूमः, किंतु सत्त्वादि> ।

>
> Mere inability to define/state is not meant by anirvachanIyatva, but the
> inability to state as sat or asat is called anirvachanIyatva.

How can you tell if something is sat or asat?  Usually it is by attempting 
to measure it in some way. For a long time educated people agreed there 
are 5 planets other than Earth. After all, even after the most careful 
observations, 5 is all that had ever been seen However after the concept 
of gravity was discovered, certain otherwise unexplainable perturbations 
in the orbit of Saturn suggested there must be another planet exerting 
gravitic influence upon it though at the time there was no proof of it. 
But sure enough, several decades later, William Herschel observed the 
planet we now call Uranus.

We know the definition of  Brahman is sat because shruti which is the 
pramana for such things tells us so.  But to really _know_ to _be_ Brahman 
requires to go beyond shruti.

>
> Since Brahman can be stated in words as sat, it is not anirvachanIya.
> Similarly, tuchchha is not anirvachanIya either. mAyA/avidyA however cannot
> be stated as either sat or asat on account of bAdhaka-sattva, it is held to
> be anirvachanIya.

Yes I agree.  Maya only is anirvarchaniya never the Self.

-- 
Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>