[Advaita-l] [advaitin] Re: avidyA is adhyasta (superimposed) in AtmA

[Jaishankar Narayanan]

Namaste Raghav ji

It is not proper to say avidyA is sequentially prior to triguNa. avidyA is
triguNAtmaka and when we talk about avidyA with reference to a jivA as
upAdhi, the tamas aspect is pradhAna. That is why it is also referred to as
malinasattva pradhAna in contrast to Ishvara upAdhi which is suddhasattva
pradhAna.

With love and prayers,
Jaishankar

On Sat, 1 Feb, 2025, 4:46 pm Raghav Kumar Dwivedula via Advaita-l, <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

> Namaste Jaishankar ji
> That's a very important point and thank you for highlighting that.  The
> english word 'qualities' for  the  triguNas does not capture the idea that
> there is no other 'substantive' that these three guNas putatively qualify.
> The triguNas themselves are dravyas, the pariNAmI upAdana kAraNam; they are
> the constituents of prakRti.
>
> A friend of mine once rejoined highlighting the many contextual meanings of
> the word guNa, that the word guNa is not always quality , else guNa sandhi
> in grammar would be "quality" sandhi - a meaningless construct!
>
> On the second point -
> That this tAmAsa pratyaya which is AvaraNAtmaka, is the cause of the
> avidyAtraya viz., agrahaNa, saMshaya-grahaNa and viparIta-grahaNa is
> noteworthy.
>
> Because it is axiomatic for SSSS that there is no fourth idea/entity/cause
> of the avidyAtraya.
>
> Having said that, since avidyA (including its AvaraNa aspect)  is
> sequentially prior to the three guNas, and avidyA is not a product/kArya or
> expression of the three guNas, how are we to assimilate the idea of avidyA
> being a 'tAmasa' pratyaya.
>
> I would understand that although avidyA is the very cause of even
> antaHkaraNa, the antaHkaraNa by its capacity for tAdAtmya with cit,
> nevertheless appears to carry or is the Ashraya of that very mUlAvidyA. In
> that sense, from the POV of mUlAvidyA expression in the antaHkaraNa, we can
> call avidyA a tAmasa *pratyaya*.
>
> I request you to clarify and kindly share your thoughts on this.
>
> Om
> Raghav
>
>