[Advaita-l] Can the self be called anirvachaniya?

[Raghav Kumar Dwivedula]

On Wed, 18 Sept, 2024, 3:10 am Jaldhar H. Vyas via Advaita-l, <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

> Thankyou to all who replied.
>
> On Wed, 11 Sep 2024, V Subrahmanian wrote:
>
> > Here is an incident related to the 34th Jagadguru Sri Chandrashekhara
> > Bharati Mahaswamin:
> >
> >
> https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.127155/page/n107/mode/2up?q=c
> > art
>
>
> On Wed, 11 Sep 2024, H S Chandramouli wrote:
>
> > In advaita SiddhAnta, anirvachanIya is not used in the sense of
> inacapable
> > of being defined in words. It is to be understood as inacapable of being
> > categorized as * सत् (sat)* or *other than सत् (sat)*. The Bhashya, in
> thr
> > places, states as below
> >
> > // तत्त्वान्यत्वाभ्यामनिर्वच
> >
> > // tattvAnyatvAbhyAmanirvachanIya //.
>
> From the link Subrahmanian ji sent.
>
> "But regarding the world, the Vedanta was equally emphatic that it was
> anirvachaniyA or _incapable_of_being_explained_in_words_" (my emphasis)
>
> I don't think it is difficult two reconcile the two views.  According to
> the conventional rules of logic you cannot decide if a proposition is true
> or false unless you know it.  Now what does "know" mean?  That is the crux
> of the matter.
>
> On Wed, 11 Sep 2024, V Subrahmanian wrote:
>
> >
> > Please read from the last paragraph on p.104 of this book.  It has a
> telling
> > lesson on how both the jagat and Brahman are both beyond speech:
> > anirvachaniyam.
> > Also in the Bh.gita Bh. 13. 12 Shankara dwells at length on this topic. A
> > detailed post on this is here:
> >
> > https://adbhutam.wordpress.com/2010/04/21/vedapraamaanya/
>
> This is an informative post.  Although it is presented as a rejoinder to a
> dvaita critique, the issue at hand is important to even the sadhaka who is
> not interested in polemics and that is why I am bringing my views before
> the scrutiny of the list.
>
> Shruti does in fact make positive statements about Atma/Brahman. I
> mentioned before atha nAmadheyaM satyasya satyamiti.  The word nAmadheya
> is significant.  Namadheya or Namakarana is the samskara performed 11 days
> after a child is born when they are given a name.  It is also a technical
> term in Mimamsa for a definition.  I.e. mantrabrahmaNayorveda nAmadheyam
> "Veda is defined as Mantras and Brahmanas."  ekam advitiyam establishes a
> jati with only one member. ayaM Atma brahma illustrates kriya. sat chit
> ananda, satyam jnanam anantam etc.are descriptions of gunas.  yato vA
> imAni bhUtani etc.is a sambandha.
>

Namaste Jaldhar ji

Just when I thought I had understood a little vedAnta and that Brahman does
not have jAti, guNa, kriya and sambandha, now you are saying Brahman has
all of the above.  :) ......why does Ishvara have to make everything so
complicated !!

Om
Raghav




>
> But there is no contradiction because as you wrote:
>
> "One should make a difference between the knowledge of the ‘existence’ of
> Brahman and the knowledge of the ‘svarUpa’, essential nature, of Brahman."
>
> To define means only to postulate the existence of a thing.  To quantify
> is to know its svarUpa and for Brahman as you say it is beyond the scope
> of words.
>
> On Wed, 11 Sep 2024, Bhaskar YR via Advaita-l wrote:
>
> > I am humbly requesting you to elaborate this.  Don’t we say Atman is
> > Aprameya??
>
> Yes.  But we also say that Atman is knowable.  Some new age interpreters
> try to claim Advaita Vedanta teaches agnosticism (which is amusing because
> agnostic literally translates to ajnani.)  There have been agnostic
> philosophies in Bharatiya tradion but Vedanta is emphatically not one of
> them.  A pramana is a means of knowledge and if Atman is not amenable to
> means of knowledge than how can we know it?  I maintain that the seeming
> paradox is only due to an imprecise use of "know".
>
> >  How can it be knowable as Vishaya when it's svarUpa is
> > nirvishesha??  Yato vAchO nivartante aprApya manasa saha, na tatra
> > chakshurgacchati na vAggacchati nO manaH shruti says so. Yes bhAshyakAra
> > says saMskrutaM manaH Atma 'darshane' karaNaM.  But here also
> > bhAshyakAra does not emphasize about 'knowing it in words'.  You mean to
> > say this knowable Self is realizable of the self or literally knowable
> > through words but not definable by words ??  Kindly clarify.
>
> I am saying Atmman can be defined or labeled by words but cannot be
> quantified by even millions or billions of words.
>
>
> On Wed, 11 Sep 2024, Bhaskar YR via Advaita-l wrote:
>
> > One more doubt erupted just now, in the adhyAsa saMbhAvana bhAshya,
> > there is a question :  that the innermost self is not an object, as
> > vedAntin speaks about non-objectness of the self, which is the outside
> > the scope of the notion of 'thou'.  In the reality transfer
> > (anyOnyAdhyAsa) one object only on another object which is right in
> > front of him is possible.  Under these conditions SELF being non-object
> > at all how then can there be reality transfer of objects and their
> > attributes on the inner self which is unobjectifiable ??  for this
> > bhAshyakAra contextually explains, the inner self is NOT invariably a
> > non-object, for it is an object of the notion that of 'I' (asmat
> > pratyaya gOchara) and the innermost self is known to be evident in
> > immediate experience.  Sri Jaldhar prabhuji might have said that the
> > self is knowable in this line of thinking!!??
>
> We all are aware that Vedanta teaches that satya is known in two
> dimensions vyavahara and paramartha.  From the vyavaharik standpoint there
> is no question that the Self is known.  vyAsopahve jaladharasharmo'ham.
> However this knowledge is limited through the interference of maya.  When
> through jnana mAya is dispelled, the higher truth that the Self is
> limitless and encompasses all things and all times.  This Self is also
> known. aham brahmAsmi.  So the statement anirvachaniyo'ham doesn't make
> sense.  There is never a situation where the Self is not known, only the
> "amount" of Self.
>
>
> On Wed, 11 Sep 2024, Sudhanshu Shekhar via Advaita-l wrote:
>
> >
> > Advaita Siddhi also says exactly what you said - नहि
> > निरुक्तिविरहमात्रेणानिर्वाच्यत्वं ब्रूमः, किंतु सत्त्वादि> ।
>
> >
> > Mere inability to define/state is not meant by anirvachanIyatva, but the
> > inability to state as sat or asat is called anirvachanIyatva.
>
> How can you tell if something is sat or asat?  Usually it is by attempting
> to measure it in some way. For a long time educated people agreed there
> are 5 planets other than Earth. After all, even after the most careful
> observations, 5 is all that had ever been seen However after the concept
> of gravity was discovered, certain otherwise unexplainable perturbations
> in the orbit of Saturn suggested there must be another planet exerting
> gravitic influence upon it though at the time there was no proof of it.
> But sure enough, several decades later, William Herschel observed the
> planet we now call Uranus.
>
> We know the definition of  Brahman is sat because shruti which is the
> pramana for such things tells us so.  But to really _know_ to _be_ Brahman
> requires to go beyond shruti.
>
> >
> > Since Brahman can be stated in words as sat, it is not anirvachanIya.
> > Similarly, tuchchha is not anirvachanIya either. mAyA/avidyA however
> cannot
> > be stated as either sat or asat on account of bAdhaka-sattva, it is held
> to
> > be anirvachanIya.
>
> Yes I agree.  Maya only is anirvarchaniya never the Self.
>
> --
> Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>
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