[Advaita-l] Whether darkness is bhava - Vivarana Prameya Samgraha of Shri Vidyaranya

[Venkatesh Murthy]

Namaste

I have not studied VPS but I think you may be misunderstanding it.

There are 5 rooms in a house and a light in every room. At night when all
lights are switched off there total darkness in the house. When 1 light is
switched on there is no darkness in 1 room but darkness in 4 rooms. When 2
lights are switched on there is no darkness in 2 rooms and darkness is in 3
rooms. And so on. When all 5 lights are switched on there is no darkness in
any room. Then only we can say there is no darkness in the house. Even when
only one room has darkness we cannot say darkness is not there in the house.

On Sat, May 4, 2019 at 6:07 PM Sudhanshu Shekhar via Advaita-l <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

> Hari Om,
>
> In Vivarana school, it is a well settled doctrine that darkness is not
> merely abhava of light. In order to prove that in Vivaran Prameya Samgraha
> ("VPS"), Shri Vidyaranya gives following logic:-
>
> If darkness were to be abhava, then it can be either
> (a) aloka-matra-abhava OR
> (b) aloka-vishesha-abhava OR
> (c) sarva-aloka-abhava
>
> I am quite convinced of his arguments on first and second. However, his
> explanation for third one does not appear convincing. Let me explain his
> logic. He says, if darkness were to be sarva-aloka-abhava then unless there
> is sannidhana (bringing about) of sarva-aloka, darkness cannot be removed.
>
> This is his argument which appears bizzare.
>
> Let darkness be A1-abhava AND  A2-abhava AND A3-abhava .........AND
> An-abhava where n is last type of aloka. Like surya-aloka-abhava AND
> deepak-aloka -abhava AND lamp-aloka-abhava upto nth type of aloka-abhava.
>
> If this is the premise then to remove darkness, we don't have to have the
> sannindhana of A1 to An as claimed by V. There is a basic logic. ~(~A1 and
> ~A2 and ~An) = A1 or A2 or An... That is to say, the negation changes the
> "and" to "or".
>
> Thus, his statement that removal of sarva-aloka-abhava can only be achieved
> by the sannidhana of sarva-aloka is incorrect. The removal of
> sarva-aloka-abhava is by kinchit-aloka and not by sarva-aloka.
>
> And thus his logic appears prima facie to be incorrect and inadmissible.
>
> Views of learned members are welcome.
>
> Regards,
> Sudhanshu.
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-- 
Regards

-Venkatesh