Sankara and the nature of avidyA

[sadananda]

Vidyashankar wrote:

>anirvacanIya is not a completely post-Sankaran term. Now, if I remember
>right, Sankara does not explicitly say avidyA is anirvacanIyA, but he does
>say that mAyA is anirvacanIyA, and elsewhere, he pretty much equates mAyA
>and avidyA. The term which means "neither real nor unreal" is
>"sad-asad-vilakshaNa", which comes from post-Sankaran advaita. But all
>that anirvacanIya means is that the polarity of avidyA cannot be declared
>to be either real or unreal. On the other hand, sad-asad-vilakshaNa means
>"different from real and unreal". Equating the two terms assumes that that
>which cannot be asserted to be either real or unreal has necessarily to be
>different from both. This may not be Sankara's intention at all. If you
>read the gItA-bhAshya, where an opponent asks Sankara about the nature of
>avidyA, Sankara pretty much refuses to categorize avidyA as real or as
>unreal or as "different from both real and unreal".


In VivekachuuDamani Shankara equates the avidya and Maya. And also says it
is neither sat, asat or both.


 avyaktanaamnii parameshashakti
 anaadyavidyaa trigunaatmikaapara|
 kaaryaanumeya sudhiyaiva maayaa
 yayaa jagatsarvamidam prasuuyate||

 sannapyasannapyubhayaatimikaa no
 bhinnapyabhinnaapyubhayaatmikaa no|
 saangaapyanangaa hyubhayaatmikaa no
 mahaadbhuutaa anirvachaniiyaruupaa||

After equating both, he says it is of the "anirvachaniiya ruupa".  Of
course one can argue that VivekachuuDamani is not the work of Shankara!

Hari Om!
Sadananda


K. Sadananda
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Naval Research Laboratory
Washington D.C. 20375
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Fax:(202)767-2623

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