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

[Venkatraghavan S]

Namaste Sudhanshu ji,

I haven't studied the work, but it may be because of the rule that for
every abhAva jnAna, one should have had pratiyogi jnAna first.

To know that a pot is absent on the table, one should have had prior
knowledge of a pot.

So, to know deepa Aloka abhAva one needs to have had jnAna of deepa Aloka
first.

Therefore, unless one has seen every kind of light in the universe, to
conclude that every light is absent is impossible.

Let's take two extremes - To know there is photon light abhAva, one has to
have seen the light from a photon first. To know the light from the
Andromeda galaxy is absent, one should have seen the Andromeda galaxy.
Without having seen both, how can one conclude that there is sarvAloka
abhAva present?

Kind regards,
Venkatraghavan




On Sat, 4 May 2019, 14:17 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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