Dear Members,
Based on my belief that making philosophical works accessible to the common man is more important than indulging in and scoring hair splitting points over perceived flaws in logic, I have been trying to contribute in the small ways I could. But I have this feeling that there is always a perceived way of doing things which if not followed will not get your message across.
With this in mind and also wanting to stick to my philosophy of accessibility I am starting two threads on advaita - one for scholars and the other for the layman. I hope this would satisfy both the purposes that I have referred to.
I request members to contribute to the discussions so that one and all can benefit.
The most important among the topics hotly debated for centuries, is of mAyA-avidyA, in advaita. This concept is so central that the advaita school which introduced this concept, is frequently characterised as “mAyAvAda”. Sankara commenced with the word "adhyAsa", in his 'adhyAsa bhAshya'. But in the course of the continuing war between advaitin scholars and non-advaitin scholars, this original adhyAsa has been variously interpreted in course of time by different advaitin scholars, and the concept has become something similar to chappatti batter which can be made into any shape at will !!
The crux of the adhyAsa conundrum is that according to Sankara's original (made in Kalady, so to say) advaita or non-dualism, there is only one Reality in the whole jagat and beyond, and that is a nirguNa brahman. It has absolutely no characteristic that nothing can be said describing or qualifying it except that "It is".
Now, the ordinary people see this world and it behaves like reality. But according to Sankara, all these realities are not realities and the perception of such reality-ness arises because of "avidyA" of the jeeva. Jeeva being nothing other than the brahman itself ( jeevO brahmaiva naapara: ) it became necessary for Sankara to explain how the brahman which is the only Reality considers this world as also reality. He took the argument that the brahman is covered by some veil and called it "adhyAsa", "adhyArOpa", etc. In course of time the word "mAyA" came to be used in this place. Since then advaita has also been referred to as "mAyAvAda" by its opponents.
rAmAnuja who reacted to the school of advaita by formulating viSishTadvaita, made the concept of mAyA-avidyA as the prime target of his attack. He stated his justly famous “seven objections”, ‘sapthavidha anupapaththi’ against the concept of mAyA-avidyA, in his Sree bhAshya.
This attack on the concept of mAyA-avidyA, initiated by rAmAnuja, is vigorously continued by his followers, and there has been continual and fierce debate between advaithins and viSishTadvaithins on the concept of mAyA-avidyA that has spread over the centuries. The concept of mAyA-avidyA is centrally connected to the very way of conceiving conflict in advaita and viSishTadvaita. For advaita it is axiomatic that brahman is non-dual and absolutely featureless, niRguNa, and therefore, the problem that naturally arises is of explaining the multiplicity of entities and features encountered by humans in the world of our experience. The concept of mAyA-avidyA is inferred by advaita as explanatory of this phenomenon. It is as good in advaita that, in view of the sole reality of the niRguNa brahman, the universe of names and forms experienced by us is not ultimately real, and this unreality is variously referred to by the terms “mithhyA”, “aniRvachaneeya”, “sadasad vilakshaNa”. Thus the concept of mAyA-avidyA is used by advaita to account for the experience of multiplicity and variety, when, in fact, there is no entity except the sole “niRguNa brahman”.
Sankara explains this by means of his 'rope-snake' analogy. But, though the mistaking a rope for snake involves misperception and the snake is supposed to last only for the duration of its knowledge, it will require the knowledge of the existence of the snake previous to the appearance of this unreal knowledge. This is of utmost importance because if the illusory object of perception (here, the snake) does not exist prior to mistaking the rope for the snake, then such a misunderstanding or illusion could not have arisen. Hence, the Jeevas must have had prior knowledge of a world which is identical to the wrongly perceived present world. If this is conceded, it will then follow that besides brahman, there is another world which is real.
Thus Sankara's advaita suffers, and that too heavily, because of his non-dualism which can be logically fitted only with the SUnyavAda of madhyamika buddhism.
May be the above points can be discussed in this thread for scholars.
