[Advaita-l] On the nature of muula avidya

[V Subrahmanian]

On Thu, Oct 27, 2011 at 9:45 PM, Raghav Kumar <raghavkumar00 at gmail.com>wrote:

> Namaste
>
> Darkness is bhAvarUpa (a positive entity) , is the view of the tradition.
>
> The bRhadAraNyaka upaniShad antaryAmi brAhmaNa (3.7.4-14) also lists
> various entities such as Apa (water), agni (fire), tejas (light), and
> in the same vein lists tamas (darkness) too, indicating its positive
> existent nature as an entity.
>

This is a nice reference.  Incidentally,  I had cited this in an earlier
article on 'bhAvarUpa avidyA'.



> The idea of tamas (darkness) being an existent entity is quite
> important since it is connected with the nature of avidya
> (self-ignorance.) Even there the word "ignorance" conjures up the
> wrong idea that it is merely the absence of knowledge.Once again, the
> corrrect idea that avidya is a positive something that obstructs
> knowledge which should have otherwise been there,



tamastu ajnAnajam viddhi....[Bh.Gi.14.8]

The Acharya's commentary:

तमः तृतीयः गुणः अज्ञानजम् अज्ञानात् जातम् अज्ञानजं विद्धि मोहनं मोहकरम्
अविवेककरं सर्वदेहिनां सर्वेषां देहवताम्। प्रमादालस्यनिद्राभिः प्रमादश्च
आलस्यं च निद्रा च प्रमादालस्यनिद्राः ताभिः प्रमादालस्यनिद्राभिः तत् तमः
निबध्नाति भारत। ।।14.8।।


Translation of the commentary:
14.8 Viddhi, know; tamas, the third qualitty; mohanam, which deludes, which
is a cause of indiscrimination; sarva-dehinam, of all embodied beings; to be
ajnanajam, born of ignorance. O scion of the Bharata dynasty, tat, that
tamas; nibadhnati, binds; pramada-alasya-nidrabhih, through inadvertence,
laziness and sleep.

Then, there is also: ajnAnam tamasaH phalam 14.16.  From the bhashya(s) we
can conclude that 'ajnAnam as kAraNam of tamas' means that the a priori
ignorance results in tamas called non-discrimination, etc.  And 'tamas as
the kAraNam of ajnAnam' means that indulging in tAmasic activity results in
the losing of one's discriminative ability with regard to dharma/adharma,
jnAnam/ajnAnam, bhaya/abhaya and the like.

In all the above cases we see either as the cause of something or as an
effect of something, tamas and ajnAnam are positive entities, bhAvarUpa.



Regards,
subrahmanian.v