[Advaita-l] Defintion of anubhava

[Praveen R. Bhat]

​Namaste Venkatraghavanji,

On Tue, Jul 4, 2017 at 11:04 PM, Venkatraghavan S <agnimile at gmail.com>
wrote:
>
> yatArtha jnAna corresponds to pramANa vritti, ayatArtha jnAna to viparyaya
> vritti, vikalpa is different from these two - asat vastu are the "objects"
> of vikalpa vritti - which is neither correct nor incorrect knowledge. nidrA
> and smriti are well known.
>
​vikalpa being viruddha or viparita kalpa vRtti may be said to include
abhAva in Vedanta, but I'm not sure if its exactly the same in Sankhya.


> Therefore, he does not need to recognise a category of vritti like vikalpa
> that refers to an asat vastu.
>
Thats true, but as I remember, Bhashyakara uses this and refutes
Vainashika-paksha in Chandogya ​Upanishad (Ch. Up.) 6th chapter on the
mantra असदेवेदम् अग्र आसीत्। Ch. Up. bhashya's way is mentioned towards the
end of this mail.

Coming to our context, one cannot have anubhava of asat vastu.
>
True, but this is same as saying one cannot have अपरोक्षज्ञान of
अत्यन्तासत्/ अत्यान्ताभाव। So the connotation of the word ज्ञान vs अनुभव
doesn't change, although I do see that you are saying that it is a ज्ञान
which is different from ​स्मृति। However, I am afraid, this leads to a
similar आरोप of dualists as we saw in the thread following Vadiraja's work.

Because the naiyyAyika by definition says asat cannot be the object of even
> a nAsti shabda prayoga, he can get away with defining anubhava as smriti
> bhinnam (i.e. it is yatArtha jnAna, ayatArtha jnAna, sushupti jnAna),
>
​Although we do not agree with Naiyayikas​ types of
प्रागुत्पत्त्याद्वयभावs, we also deny that अत्यान्तासत् can cause any शाब्द
and वाक्यबोध on its own merits. Bhashyakara says in Ch. Up. 6th chapter
that although there is no शाब्दबोध directly in a statement dealing with
अत्यान्तासत्/ अभाव, the way वाक्यबोध happens though is that the नञ्
(negation) of the भाव applies not to the word but to the entire sentence.
That is, the बोध happens first with the भाव वस्तु and the नञ् says that it
is the अभाव of that बोध। This is an awesome way that Bhashyakara deals with
statements such as असत्/ अभावः अस्ति or I would say even नास्ति|

I think we will have to define anubhava as smriti-vikalpayorbhinnam.
>
So barring
अत्यन्तासत्/
अत्यन्ताभाव we would be agreeing with Nyaya definition.
Fair enough
​, I don't see any harm, and no definite effect in what matters for
Vedantins.​
​​
Thanks for your participation.

​gurupAdukAbhyAm
,
--Praveen R. Bhat
/* येनेदं सर्वं विजानाति, तं केन विजानीयात्। Through what should one know
That owing to which all this is known! [Br.Up. 4.5.15] */
​