[Advaita-l] Defintion of anubhava

[Praveen R. Bhat]

Namaste Anandji,


On Wed, Jul 5, 2017 at 6:06 PM, Anand Hudli via Advaita-l <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

Thanks for quotations from both Vivarana and Bhamati. It seems that word
jnAna would be more appealing for Vivarana followers and anubhava for
Bhamati followers, although there is no real difference between the two
since both mean only svattassiddhaH AtmA and both do not have the exact
same usage as their laukika counterparts.

>
> It is in this context that one must understand Shankara BhagavatpAda's use
> of the word "anubhava", which is made clearer in his statement, bhavet
> AvRtti AnarthakyaM taM prati yaH tattvamasi iti sakRt uktameva
> brahmAtmatvaM *anubhavituM* shaknuyAt. (B.S.B. 4.1.2).
>

The word anubhava gives a sense of immediacy without dependency on karaNas,
more than the word jnAna does.
​

> Coming back to laukika fields, it is possible for a person to have
> "theoretical" or "bookish" knowledge without "practical" experience. This
> notion has, unfortunately, spilled over to Vedanta study. There is really
> no such parallel in traditional Vedanta, although modern day students
> taking Vedanta courses, including online courses, may be considered to have
> this kind of "theoretical" knowledge.
> ​
>
​True. It becomes akin to: pustakasthA tu yA vidyA.​..

​gurupAdukAbhyAm
,
--Praveen R. Bhat
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