[Advaita-l] [advaitin] Re: Swami Sureswaracharya and avidyA

[H S Chandramouli]

Namaste.

Most of the authoritative commentaries on advaita including from
Sureswaracharya,Padmapadacharya,Prakashatman (VivaraNa), Vachaspati Mishra
etc relate to the period prior to the formulation of Navya NyAya. This
originated in 13th Century and refined over a long period then on. This
refined Navya NyAya presents a completely different definitions of the
concepts of bhAva, Existence etc as compared to the older school of NyAya,
prAchIna nyAya. Thus the meaning of terms like Existence, bhAva etc found
in the earlier advaitic texts referred to above relate to their definitions
as per prAchIna nyAya. With the evolution of navya nyAya with all the
refinements gaining ground, the logicians presented a challenge to the
advaitins to defend their vAda with reference to the newer definitions. The
later advaitic commentators like Madhusudana Saraswati (Advaita Siddhi),
Gowda Brahmananda ( Laghu Chandrika ) etc were obliged to redefine their
use of terms like Existence, bhAva, avidyA  etc to meet this challenge.
These definitions often bore no resemblance to their definitions as found
in the earlier advaitic texts referred to above.

As such conflicting views expressed in recent posts concerning bhAva abhAva
vilakshaNa, Orders of Existence etc based on earlier commentaries vis a vis
 later ones like Laghuchandrika etc and continuing seemingly endless
debates appear  to me to be invalid as the definitions themselves for these
terms are entirely different.

In my view, the simpler definitions adopted in the earlier commentaries are
more than adequate for understanding the SiddhAnta. The later commentaries
like Laghuchandrika etc responding to challenges posed by navya nyAya
protagonists may satisfy intellectual curiosity, but definitely neither
essential nor suitable for those more interested in Siddhanta rather than
strict logic or grammer.

But one thing is clear. Debates mixing up the two are certainly invalid.

My understanding.

Regards

On Mon, May 25, 2026 at 9:14 PM H S Chandramouli <hschandramouli at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Namaste Sudhanshu Ji,
>
> Reg  //  That is why I am skeptical of the usage of words such as
> "positive" etc. As long as we both agree to avidyā being
> bhāva-abhāva-vilakṣaṇa, it is fine //,
>
> No Sir. I am not in agreement with this view. But I dont intend debating
> this.
>
> Regards
>
>
>
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