[Advaita-l] [advaitin] Re: avidya vs maayaa - What is the difference? - Part 7

[kuntimaddi sadananda]

Venkatraghavan:
So for example, in the rope snake example, theconsciousness delimited by the rope contains within it, rope-ignorance, whichcovers the rope. 
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Sada: I am not sure I understand this delimiting process.From my point rope just exists. It has no consciousness nor ignorance.Existence itself expresses in the form of a rope with its attributes (naama andruupa). 

Epistemologically, as per meemamsa (whch advaita adopts),mind goes out with the senses and grasps the object. Senses sense theattributes of the object and feed to the mind forming vRitti in the mind – thatis vRitti vyaapti. In the case of rope/snake the vRitti that is formed haspartial attributive content. Hence the cognition that involves recognition fromthe memory concludes that it is a snake. It is the mind that is ignorant of completerattributes of the rope for prama – hence we have brahma or erroneous cognitionor recognition. Similarly it is the mind that has ignorance of chemistry or anyother thing or concept. All objective knowledge is attributive knowledge andattributes have to be gathered by senses to form vRitti in the mind. If all thesenses do not function, no perception of the world occurs – that mind will beignorant of the world out there. May be a separate topic - From the science point, thereflected light from the object reaches retina and forms an image which istransmitted by the optical nerves system to the brain which by god-givenprogram code converts into software called vRitti in the mind! Science has no furthertools  to analyze the software, the mindand the vRitti. End product in both theories is formation of a vRitti thecontents of which is the reflected attributes of the object perceived. 

Venkatraghavan
The perceiver's thought which is also inert, removes theinert rope-ignorance to reveal the rope (vritti jnAnam), and the consciousnessenclosed within the revealing thought becomes one with the rope-enclosedconsciousness (phala jnAnam) to lead to the knowledge "I see the ropethere". 

Sada:

Venkatraghavanji – I havediscussed the perceptual process in the Critical Analysis of Vedanta Paribhashaavailable in my website www.advaitaforum.org.Vritti forms in the mind (via sense input). Senses actually gather thereflected attributes of the object such as form etc. If senses are color blind,then information gathered by the senses are not true representation of theobject. Reflection of the all-pervading consciousness by the vRitti is theknowledge of the vRitti – and therefore knowledge of the attributive continentof the object as perceived by the senses. That is phala vyaapti. Spontaneouslythe subject thought – aham vRitti arises in the mind – as I am the knower or Iknow this is a pot etc arise. Errors (adhyaasa) occurs due to incompleteattributive knowledge of the objects either due to defective senses or due toabsence of all other associated conditions (bright light etc) required for thesenses to gather complete attributes of the object. Errors in Chemistryknowledge can occur if the provided information is defective or if the mind is notfully prepared for the pramana to operate. In all these cases the ignorance is notfully removed. This happens in Vedantic knowledge too. 

To be continued