[Advaita-l] Nyayasudha Objections 1

[Anand Hudli]

>Very basis of "lakShya" is that it is pratipAdya by lakshaNA-vRtti. Now,
>what is lakShNa?  it is shakya-saMbandha - meaning for saMandha jnAna,
>saMandhi jnAna is the cause. In the current context, Brahman is saMandi,
>and how is this saMandi jnAna possible without having any words denoting in
>its primary meaning? Without this being addressed, how can one accept
>lakshyArtha be called pramA?

We seem to be going round in circles here. As I pointed out earlier, even
if lakShyArtha is not possible in the case of Brahman, that is acceptable
to us, since Brahman is not expressible by words directly or indirectly, in
reality. Keeping this mind, we find statements in the shruti, such as "neti
neti". Whatever concept, thing, place, person, god, etc. that you can think
of or imagine, the shruti says "neti" - that is not Brahman. The analogy of
Meru is not appropriate, because even if there is a huge mountain one can
imagine a part or some property of the mountain. For instance, you can
imagine a mountain of gold or with snow-capped peaks, etc. In the case of
Brahman, there is no property at all! That is exactly why shruti says the
mind and words cannot reach it, which means you cannot even imagine
Brahman.

To the above, you can repeat the familiar objection - then does Brahman
equate to shUnya or Brahman is not known through any pramANa? I will have
to repeat that Shankara BhagavtpAda denies this when he says
"asmatpratyayaviShayatvAt"- it *appears* to the object of the concept "I".
Since Brahman is never presented as an object, the best the shruti can do
is to use lakShyArtha to indicate Brahman, using many words such as
nirguNaM niShkriyaM nirmalaM, niravadyaM, nirAkAraM AdinArAyaNaM dhyAyet
(tripAdvibhUtimahAnArayaNa upanishad) etc.

Anand