[Advaita-l] avidya vs maayaa - What is the difference? - Part II

[kuntimaddi sadananda]

Venkatraghavan:
2) It attributes the locus of avidyA as the "jIva". This has its ownissues because such an attribution suffers from anyonyAshraya doSha.------------------- Sada: 

This is problem always exists, andhas been one of the objections of VishiShTaadvaitin. This is same aschicken-egg situation and is solved by saying that avidya is anaadi. Thataspect remains the same- Any ignorance has to be anaadi and can end withknowledge. VishiShTaadvaitin have the same problem when the say karma is anaadi– they have the same anyonya ashraya dosha. By the by, this is one of thearguments in the Shatadhushani of Vedanta Desika.  Venkatraghavan:  If jIva is Brahman endowedwith avidyA, how can such an avidyA be then located in a jIva? If it is saidthat this defect is remedied because of anaditva, then such an anAdi avidyA andjIva would be ananta, would mean that such an anAdi jIva with anAdi avidyAwould also be an avidyA yuta jIva forever, leading to anirmokshatva. ------------------------------Sada: avidya is always anaadi but can endwith knowledge. That is the nature of avidya. Since when, I did not knowChemistry – I have to say from the beginning I did not know Chemistry.Ignorance of chemistry is anaadi, however can end with the gain of knowledge.This is one of the criticisms for bhaavaruupa avidya, by some commentators.Without  getting into hair splitting arguments we can says that anyignorance is anaadi and can end with knowledge – bhava ruupa or abhaava ruupamakes no difference here, from my point. ---------------------------------------Venkatraghavan: It would also mean that each jIva isendowed with a different avidyA, requiring multiple Ishvaras and multiplecreations. However, such a view would be contrary to shruti.   Sada: 


You have already addressed this inyour next mail. We have only one Iswara who has maaya Shakti which involves sumtotal of all vaasanaas of all beings in the creation, put together. 

------------------------------------------------Venkatraghavan:

3) You invoke the principle of lAghavatva, ie you do not need avidyA to haveboth AvaraNa and vikshepa. Your proposal has avidyA with only AvaraNa, and mAyawith vikshepa and by doing so, you say it makes the system more logical. Thisleads to a problem, that moksha becomes a multi step process, where not only isAvaraNa rUpa avidyA needs to be removed in one step, but would necessitate aseparate step that falsifies vikshepa rUpa mAya. Because by definition, bynegating only AvaraNa rUpa avidyA, the jIva only negates AvaraNa , and he wouldneed another basis to negate vikshepa rUpa mAya, whose effects he perceives asthis world. 

Sada: 

When avidya is removed, theknowledge that I am Brahmasmi is gained – End of the process of liberation.This knowledge should be aparoksha jnaanam rather than paroksha jnaanam. Since moksha is not a process, the knowledge that everything is nothingbut Brahman and aham brahmasmi is gained via Vedanta pramaana. Then jeevabecomes a jeevanmukta.  Vikshepa is due to two parts – oneis Iswara sRiShTi and the other is jeeva sRiShTi. With knowledge, jiiva sRiShTiis gone – that is – mamakaara and ahankaara . He may use this for transactionalpurposes like an actor playing a role on the stage, but he has no realownership in his mind. This is similar to Shankara saying that I am writingthis bhashya, etc. Iswara sRiShTi will be there as he becomes a teacher forthose who are seeking the knowledge. Without vikshepa we will not have a jnaaniteachers! Since jnaanam is at the individual mind level, while Iswara sRiShTiis at global lelvel, the Vikshepa of Iswara will remain as long BMI created byIswara remains.  Hence we call him as jeevan mukta orKrishna calls him sthitaprajna..  In essence by separating the twonothing is lost – in fact they get separated for jeevan mukta as well as forIswara. d------------------------------