advaita-siddhi - 17 The third definition of mithyAtva

[Guest guest]

I am reposting the following from the advaita-l list. Previous

articles are in the advaita-l archives at:

 

(http://www.escribe.com/religion/advaita/index.html

 

and may be accessed as indicated below. This list seems to be very

active whereas my spare time is limited and so please accept my

apologies in advance if I cannot respond promptly to all replies

to messages in this series.

 

Anand

 

================================================================

 

Having seen the first two definitions of mithyAtva (unreality),

we will now study the third definition of mithyAtva that

MadhusUdana deals with in the advaita-siddhi. Previous articles

on the advaita-siddhi may be retrieved from the archives by

searching for the key word "siddhi." These articles also include

the background in nyAya that is useful in making sense out of

MadhusUdana's work which is certainly one of the finest polemical

treatises in the whole of Indian philosophy.

 

Recall that the first definition of mithyAtva said that

what is mithyA is characterized by "sadasadanadhikaraNatva",

not being the substratum of either sat (Existence) or asat

(nonexistence). And the second definition of mithyAtva said

that what is mithyA (unreal) is characterized as being the

counterpositive (pratiyogin) of an absolute negation in the very

substratum where it (the thing that is mithyA) is cognized.

 

The third definition that is now taken up in the advaita-siddhi

simply says:

 

GYAnanivartyatvaM vA mithyAtvam.h |

 

Alternatively, unreality is the property of being sublated by

knowledge or cognition.

 

This is an extremely pithy definition which must only be

understood by careful analysis, not just brushed off as something

obvious and trivial. The definition comes from the VivaraNAchArya,

PrakAshAtman.

 

First of all, let us do a simple analysis. We know that GYAna

and aGYAna are like light and darkness. aGYAna, ignorance is

sublated, negated by GYAna. Further, what is aGYAna, ignorance,

is also unreal. If I am ignorant of something, I have erroneous

information about that thing. This erroneous information does

not represent any true state of affairs. So it is false. When

do I eliminate the erroneous information? Only when I have the

correct information, GYAna of the thing in question.

 

Next, let us try to analyse the definition in a deeper and

technical manner using nyAya. In any philosophical debate, any

definitions that you make must be unambiguous and must withstand

close scrutiny by the opponent. This is especially true in the

advaita-siddhi context because the opponents here happen to

be led by the mAdhva exponent VyAsa-tIrtha, who in the words of

contemporary mAdhva scholar BNK Sharma (if my memory serves me

right), subjects all theories to "microscopic scrutiny." We'd

better make sure the definition is "air-tight" with no holes

whatsoever.

 

A significant difficulty with the definition, when we

take a closer look, is this. The definition should apply to

ordinary cases of illusion such as the silver-in-nacre and

snake-on-rope as well as the quite extra-ordinary and fantastic

illusion of the world on Brahman. The cognition of the rope

as rope (or nacre as nacre) ends the ordinary illusion.

Now what ends the illusion of the world? Surely, Brahman cannot

be cognized in the same objective way that a piece of rope or nacre

is cognized. The cognition of an object, such as a rope, of the

form of "this is a rope" is fundamentally different from the

GYAna of Brahman or BrahmasAxAtkAra, the direct realization of

Brahman. What is it that is so fundamentally different between

the two types of GYAna? Let us investigate further with the

help of nyAya, more specifially the tarka-saMgraha of annaMbhaTTa.

 

tatra niShprakArakaM GYAnaM nirvikalpakam.h|

saprakArakaM GYAna savikalpakam.h |

 

An indeterminate cognition (nirvikalpaka-GYAna) is one with

no attribute (prakAra).

A determinate cognition (savikalpaka-GYAna) is one with

an attribute (prakAra).

 

Any savikalpaka-GYAna can be broken down into three components,

as per nyAya. Or more precisely, any savikalpaka-GYAna has an

objective content (viShaya) consisting of 1) a visheShya or

qualificand, 2) a visheShaNa (also prakAra), ie. a qualifier,

and 3) a saMsarga or relation between the qualificand and

qualifier. This also corresponds roughly to the subject-predicate

form of a sentence in natural language.

 

Consider the Sanskrit sentence "nIlo ghaTaH" (the pot is blue.)

Here the visheShya is "pot", the visheShaNa is "nIla" and the

relation between them is that of inherence of blue color in the

pot. Such a relation is called "samavAya" in nyAya.

 

In the language of navya-nyAya, the cognition corresponding to

the sentence (nIlo ghaTaH) is analysed as follows:

 

nIlatva-avachchhinnaprakAratAnirUpita-ghaTatva-avachchhinna-

visheShyatAnirUpita-samavAyatva-avachchhinna-saMsargatA-

nirUpita-viShayitAshAli-GYAnam.h |

 

An awkward English translation is:

 

It is a cognition whose subjectness is described by the

qualificandness delimited by potness, described by the qualifierness

delimited by blue-ness, and described by the relation-ness delimited

by

inherence-ness.

 

The naiyAyikas say that in a nirvikalpaka cognition, it is not

possible to identify the visheShya, the visheShaNa, and the

saMsarga, even though they may be present. This is where the

advaitins part company with the naiyAyikas. The advaitins hold

that in a nirvikalpaka-GYAna, only Existence (Brahman) is

presented. There is no visheShya, no visheShaNa, no saMsarga.

 

Finally now, we can be satisified that the definition of

mithyAtva as "GYAnanivartyatvaM vA mithyAtvam.h" applies

to ordinary illusions as well as the world-on-Brahman

illusion. When an ordinary illusion such as a snake-on-rope

is negated in an ordinary fashion, the cognition which negates

the illusion is the savikalpaka type, "this is a rope."

When the world-illusion is negated by Brahma-GYAna, this

GYAna is of the nirvikalpaka type.

 

In the next part, we will see how the opponent launches

a new line of attack on the definition.

 

Anand

[Guest guest]

First my hearty welcome to Shree Anand Hudli to this list. I have

learned a lot from his posts.

 

Note to Anand - When I went to advaita-l acrhives, I could not

locates some posts of advaita siddhi in the series. Can you check if

all the series are stored. I have to look back into mine folder to

see what I am missing.

 

Hari Om!

Sadananda

 

>I am reposting the following from the advaita-l list. Previous

>articles are in the advaita-l archives at:

>

>(http://www.escribe.com/religion/advaita/index.html

>

>and may be accessed as indicated below. This list seems to be very

>active whereas my spare time is limited and so please accept my

>apologies in advance if I cannot respond promptly to all replies

>to messages in this series.

>

>Anand

>

--

K. Sadananda

Code 6323

Naval Research Laboratory

Washington D.C. 20375

Voice (202)767-2117

Fax:(202)767-2623

[Guest guest]

Dear Sadaji and Anandji:

 

Namaskar,

 

Sri Anand has been a member of this list for quite sometime, but

this is his first post. It may not be possible to locate all the files

on Advaita Siddhi at escribe.com because some of them are really

missing (if messages reaches escribe.com when the computer is

down, those messages are not posted.)Our list tracks down the missing

files and repost them. If you want to locate all the files, you should

go to the archives at:

http://lists.advaita-vedanta.org/archives/advaita-l.html

But it is rather difficult to track down all the messages because

there is no search facility.

 

Here is my solution to this problem.

Advaita Siddhi is quite an important document and Anand's presentation

is excellent for details and rigor. Since this is good reference

materials for for all advaitins, I want to request Anandji to upload

all the 17 postings at the file facility at:

http://www.escribe.comadvaitin/ or

http://www.escribe.comadvaita

 

The procedure is quite straight forward. Alternatively, I will be more

than happy to upload them on behalf of Anandji if can kindly send the

files to me.

 

This list is quite fortunate to get the scholarly postings of Sadaji,

Anandji and Vidyasankarji, Sunderji and others.

 

warmest regards,

 

Ram Chandran

 

advaitin , "K. Sadananda" <sada@a...> wrote:

> First my hearty welcome to Shree Anand Hudli to this list. I have

> learned a lot from his posts.

>

> Note to Anand - When I went to advaita-l acrhives, I could not

> locates some posts of advaita siddhi in the series. Can you check

if

> all the series are stored. I have to look back into mine folder to

> see what I am missing.

>

> Hari Om!

> Sadananda

>

> Voice (202)767-2117

> Fax:(202)767-2623

[Guest guest]

Here are links to all 17 articles in the series so far:

 

1. http://www.escribe.com/religion/advaita/m6467.html

 

1.(correction) http://www.escribe.com/religion/advaita/m6471.html

 

2. http://www.escribe.com/religion/advaita/m6480.html

 

3. http://www.escribe.com/religion/advaita/m6498.html

 

4. http://www.escribe.com/religion/advaita/m6499.html

 

5. http://www.escribe.com/religion/advaita/m6520.html

 

6. http://www.escribe.com/religion/advaita/m6533.html

 

7. http://www.escribe.com/religion/advaita/m6558.html

 

8. http://www.escribe.com/religion/advaita/m6576.html

 

9. http://www.escribe.com/religion/advaita/m6653.html

 

10. http://www.escribe.com/religion/advaita/m7134.html

 

11. http://www.escribe.com/religion/advaita/m7153.html

 

12. http://www.escribe.com/religion/advaita/m7186.html

 

13. http://www.escribe.com/religion/advaita/m7290.html

 

14. http://www.escribe.com/religion/advaita/m7381.html

 

15. http://www.escribe.com/religion/advaita/m7888.html

 

16. http://www.escribe.com/religion/advaita/m7931.html

 

17. http://www.escribe.com/religion/advaita/m9004.html

 

 

I hope the files can be uploaded to advaitin archives from

these links.

 

Anand

 

advaitin , "Ram Chandran" <rchandran@c...> wrote:

> Dear Sadaji and Anandji:

>

> Namaskar,

>

> Sri Anand has been a member of this list for quite sometime, but

> this is his first post. It may not be possible to locate all the

files

> on Advaita Siddhi at escribe.com because some of them are really

> missing (if messages reaches escribe.com when the computer is

> down, those messages are not posted.)Our list tracks down the

missing

> files and repost them. If you want to locate all the files, you

should

> go to the archives at:

> http://lists.advaita-vedanta.org/archives/advaita-l.html

> But it is rather difficult to track down all the messages because

> there is no search facility.

>

> Here is my solution to this problem.

> Advaita Siddhi is quite an important document and Anand's

presentation

> is excellent for details and rigor. Since this is good reference

> materials for for all advaitins, I want to request Anandji to upload

> all the 17 postings at the file facility at:

> http://www.escribe.comadvaitin/ or

> http://www.escribe.comadvaita

>

> The procedure is quite straight forward. Alternatively, I will be

more

> than happy to upload them on behalf of Anandji if can kindly send

the

> files to me.

>

> This list is quite fortunate to get the scholarly postings of

Sadaji,

> Anandji and Vidyasankarji, Sunderji and others.

>

> warmest regards,

>

> Ram Chandran

>

> advaitin , "K. Sadananda" <sada@a...> wrote:

> > First my hearty welcome to Shree Anand Hudli to this list. I have

> > learned a lot from his posts.

> >

> > Note to Anand - When I went to advaita-l acrhives, I could not

> > locates some posts of advaita siddhi in the series. Can you check

> if

> > all the series are stored. I have to look back into mine folder

to

> > see what I am missing.

> >

> > Hari Om!

> > Sadananda

> >

>

> > Voice (202)767-2117

> > Fax:(202)767-2623