[Advaita-l] What is the difference between Maya and avidhya ?T

[Bhaskar YR]

praNAms
Hare Krishna

Is jnAnAbhAva another term for avidyA or  ajnAna or agrahana ( tattva agrahana) ? Or does it mean something else ?

Ø   As you know ( I think) one of the lakshaNa-s of avidyA is jnAnAbhAva or agrahaNa apart from this there are two more i.e. anyathAgrahaNa and saMshaya.
You may want to refer some discussion on this term (jnAnAbhAva) from Venkatraghavanji / PraveenJi ?


Ø     For your kind information I have stopped discussing vedAnta with some prabhuji-s in  this list after taking their due permission.  Yes, with all due reverence I do read their mails and clarification on somany vedAntic topics but due to my limited intelligence and exposure sometimes it goes beyond my reach of understanding.  BTW prabhuji, what sri Venkatraghavan prabhuji shared with regard to jnAnAbhAva??  Please direct me to his relevant mail.

still to get a clear understanding of mUlAvidyA..

Ø   In the vyAkhyAna on ‘paNchapAdika-vivaraNa’ you will get more details about mUlAvidyA.  In short, in Atma Chaitanya there exists an anAdi anirvachaneeya avidyA.  And because of the reason that it is dependent upon anAdi chaitanyasattA it is ‘anAdi’, because of the reason it is neither sat not asat it is anirvachaneeya.  Synonyms of this avidyA nAma rUpa, avyAkruta, mAya, prakruti, AgrahaNa, avyakta, tamas, kAraNa, laya, Shakti, mahAsupti etc. etc. And this avidyA does not mean an abhAva of the nature of not knowing, nor it is of the nature of knowing wrongly and is it its saMskAra.  This avidyA is jnana virOdhi and bhAvarUpa (of a substantive nature).  This is the cause of all samsara, it exists uniformly in all the three states (avasthA-s), while in jAgrat and svapna it is the cause (upAdAna) for the adhyAsa and in sushupti it is in beeja rUpa (kAraNa).

For more details you can refer any  vivaraNa school vyAkhyAna prabhuji.  I did not want to mention any school name here but since you asked more details on mUlAvidyA I have to mention the name of this school.  No offence intended whatsoever to the Advaita Acharya-s from this school of thought.  I am just sharing the information.

Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
bhaskar