[Advaita-l] Sringeri AchAryas on the vivaraNa - the cause of adhyAsa (3)

[bhaskar.yr at in.abb.com]

praNAms Sri Praveen prabhuji
Hare Krishna

Pardon me for the belated reply...

Bhaskar-ji wrote:
> I have a very simple question here...If mUlAvidya covering the reality of
> the self, this mUlAvidyA cannot be removed by any amount of knowledge
> obtained by jIva...Because as per above the Darkness or mUlAvidyA has the
> capacity to cover even the reality of the self!! brahman himself/itself
> should have to remove this mUlAvidyA since it pertains to him!!

praveen:
My line of thinking is so:
If jIvo brahmaiva nA para and brahmavid brahmaiva bhavati, then why
not? So, capacity to cover even the reality of the self "for whom"
(hidden from whom?) is to be added to understand the statement better.
That jIvA which has become (figuratively) brahmaN, does not remain
covered by mUlAvidyA. Therefore, ajnAna is false knowledge thats a
positive entity making the jIvA identification and bindings thereof,
which is removed by jnAna, a positive, true knowledge.

bhaskar :

prabhuji please note vivaraNakAra says jIva in ahankAra rUpa suffers from
tUlAvidyA which is in turn a part of mUlAvidyA which again a co-existing
entity with brahman...This mUlAvidyA cannot be removed *completely* by any
amount of knowledge though jIva at the best gets rid of part of this
mUlAvidyA i.e. tUlAvidyA.  Because according to vivaraNa school this
mUlAvidyA covers brahman & jIva in his lifetime cannot come over it...If
that is the case my question is how a jIva can become brahman, a jIva who
does not covered by mUlAvidyA cannot remove it coz. it does not pertains to
him but pertains to brahman!! In that case brahman should have removed
mUlAvidyA which pertains to him through his getting knowledge to make
himself out of some particular jIva..is it not??  This problem does not
trouble us if we accept adhyAsa bhAshya *AS* presented by shankara..

Bhaskar-ji wrote:
> Because no one says
> that when I know the rope, the encompassed avidyA on the rope is
removed!!!
> It is quite natural & logical to say that I have got a right knowledge of
> rope and my ignorance about it now gone!!

praveen: The ignorance about the rope, if negative entity, would only
mean "not-understanding that its a rope", why would it be "projection
of the snake"? That positive presence of the snake brings in the
argument of false knowledge. And any true knowledge destroys false
knowledge, be the latter positive. In this case, the knowledge of the
rope and removal of the projected snake is a single thing.

bhaskar :

It seems you too not that much familiar with vivaraNa interpretation of
mUlAvidyA...I hope Sri Anand prabhuji would present views/process involved
in *removal of ajnAna* from vivaraNa perspective...For your ready
reference, in short, there are two different types of jnAna one is vrutti
vyApti and another is phala vyApti. the mUlAvidyA as you have read earlier,
encompasses brahman...and a part of this avidyA encompasses the outer
things also.  Hence we cannot see rope as rope...To get the real knowledge
of rope two functions are necessary..firstly, a vrutti should pervade rope,
by this the curtain of avidyA will be removed and secondly chidAbhAsa comes
there and gets the right knowledge of rope..Here first function is called
pramANa bhUta jnAna which gives only the knowledge that what we cognize IS
NOT snake...and the second function is called phalabhUta jnAna which gives
the knowledge that what we cognize/experience IS rope..So this function is
not single & simultaneous according to vivaraNa..I think more details you
can find from Sri Ananda Hudli's subsequent mails.

shankarArpaNamastu,
--praveeN

Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
bhaskar