Snake/Rope

[Guest guest]

Namaste Chittaranjaji,

Thank you for your clear

exposition of the sabda concept of Saivism as

it relates to Advaita. I would have reservations

about the idea of inference from a single instance

but that is a knotty topic and perhaps we could

consider it pencilled in for another day as you

are busy with present discussion of the snake rope.

 

I have always felt that the analogy was

overcooked and overused. I mean by this

that it is turned into an homology or a

parallel. Shankara warns against this in U.S.

 

An objection is made on the basis of the

iron ball simile. Does not the pervasion

of the intellect by the Self represent an

action as in the case of the iron ball?

#86 "That black iron appears to

be red is only an example (to illustrate

the fact that the non-conscious intellect

appears to be conscious). An illustration

and its subject can nowhere be absolutely

similar in all respects."

 

The problem with the snake/rope analogy

is that it is used with the focus on two

different aspects. (a) In the Preamble to

the B.S.B. the focus is on transference or

transposition or superimposition of attributes.

Falsity is not the issue. The actual 'reality'

of the object gets transferred to the subject

and vice versa.

 

In general use the focus is on

(b) confusion or falsity.

In short what we take to be the independent

world is in fact Brahman.

 

In (a) the focus is on perception and how

the reality of what is out there is really

in us as it is. The object and its knowledge are one.

In (b) we move to a higher level with an

ontological critique of Body, Mind, Intellect,

perception and the 47A bus.

 

The matter is further confused by Shankara's

taking seriously in the Preamble of the objection:

 

"How, again, can there be any superimposition

of any object or its attributes on the

(inmost) Self that is opposed to the non-Self

and is never an object (of the senses and mind)?

For everybody superimposes something else on

what is perceived by him in front, and you

assert that the Self is opposed to the non-Self

and is not referable (objectively) by the concep "you". "

 

Shankara's answer to this would seem to

be tacitly accepting this overextension

of the analogy into a parallel.

 

The exact limitations of the use of

analogy as an instrument of reasoning

was not part of the problem field in the

time of Shankara as it was for Aristotle

so he appears to be drawn into the use of

it as a parallel in his defence of the

particular validity of the Self/Non-Self

superimposition. And of course it is just a preamble!

 

Best Wishes,

Michael.

 

P.S.

"To see a World in a Grain of Sand,

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,

And Eternity in an hour. (Augeries of Innocence)

 

Both read the Bible day and night,

But thou read'st black where I read white.

(The Everlasting Gospel)