[Advaita-l] mithyA from archives

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

>> The chAndogya upanishat, in the sadvidyA section
>> (dialogue between uddAlaka and his son), talks of a
>> division of three elements into parts and
>> intermixing of these parts. This is called
>> trivRtkaraNa.
>
> The emphasis of the sad vidya is sad vidya only and
> not on sRiShTi. The discussion started with the
> question by Uddalaka how 'eka vijnaane sarva vijnaanam
> bhavati' - discussion is with the emphasis on kaarya
> kaaraNa samaanaadhikaraNa - knowing the cause one can
> know all the effects orginated from that cause.

And that is precisely the 'saMAna nyAya' that bhagavatpAda applies to pancIkaraNa also in the bhAshya. "... satA vijnAtena sarvam idaM vijnAtaM bhavati ... tad ekasmin sati vijnAte sarvam idaM vijnAtaM bhavati iti." If we understand that all the components of the universe originally arose from the one "Sat" that is without a second, then no matter what our mundane explanation of the universe's properties may be, our focus shifts back to that one "Sat". And indeed, that is precisely what the independent text called pancIkaraNa does too - it starts from a pancIkaraNa model of the universe and immediately shifts the focus back to the one "Sat" through a meditation on the praNava.

In today's context, I would extend the same principle of 'samAna nyAya' from trivRtkaraNa and pancIkaraNa to modern scientific explanations of the universe, e.g. the big bang theory, to name one example. It is not about the correctness or otherwise of this one theory or that other theory of the origin of the universe. It is also not as if any of these theories prove the truth of advaita. Rather, any such theory is only a convenient starting point in our fundamental understanding of that one "Sat" - Existence (with a convenient capital E!).

Regards,
Vidyasankar
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