Locus of avidya

[Guest guest]

Dear Shri Sreenivasa Murthy,

 

I suppose by vidya you mean the akhaNDAkAra vRtti which destroys avidyaa and

by locus you mean the place where this arises. The answer is that, like all

vRttis, this is also a modification of the mind and so it arises in the mind

or antahkaraNa. Thefollowing passage from Sri Sankara's bhAshya makes this

clear.

 

Gita, 2. 21, Sankara bhAshya— " The Self, while remaining immutable, is

imagined to be the knower of objects such as sound, which are actually

experienced by the mind and the sense-organs. This is because the Self is

not distinguished from the mental modifications (vrittis) due to nescience.

Similarly, the Self is spoken of as having become enlightened only because

of avidyaa associating it with that intellectual perception ---which is also

unreal--- which takes the form of discrimination between the Self and the

not-Self, while in reality the Self has undergone no change whatsoever. " (The

idea is that neither ignorance, nor enlightenmement, pertains to the Self.

Both are only in the mind and are wrongly attributed to the Self). .

 

S.N.Sastri

 

 

I request the learned members to throw light on " The locus of

Vidya " .

>

> With warm and respectful regards,

> Sreenivasa Murthy