[Advaita-l] Maya and Avidya

[Bhaskar YR]

Is Maya and Avidya Synonymous? If Jiva's Avidya is removed, will Eshwara's Maya also automatically be gone? Reason I am asking this question is because, I read in Swami Paramananda Bharathi swami's book ' Vedanta Prabhoda' in which he says those two terms are not Synonymous. Please clarify.

praNAms
Hare Krishna

Most of the advaitins will not agree that avidyA and mAya are different.  I don’t know much about others but HH Sri Satchidaanandendra Saraswati swamiji of Holenarsipura who dedicated almost 6 decades in studying bhAshyakAra's works says in one of his works like this, we should dismiss the idea of the post shankara who have stumbled into the mistake of identifying the mAyA with avidyA.  And while on the subject it also to be noted that well known scholars in Advaita saMpradAya defended that  brahma Shakti, avyakta etc. are too to be nothing but brahmAshrita mUlAvidyA.   

Anyway, I am happy to note that more scholars / swamiji-s agreeing to this un-traditional way of thinking about the concept of mAya and avidyA and openly declaring mAya (Shakti, avyakta, avyAkruta, akshara, prakruti, anirvachaneeya some of the synonyms to mAyA)  and avidyA (agrahaNa, jnAnAbhAva,  anyathAgrahaNa, saMshaya, vipareeta kalpana, bhrAnti, ajnAna etc. some of the synonyims to avidyA)  are different and not the same.

Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
Bhaskar