An objection from Dvaita on adhyAsa with a Response from an advaitin

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Namaste.

 

The following objection, sourced from the internet, is presented

alongwith a response from the Advaitin's side.

Dvaita vs Advaita: Vadiraja attacks Advaita Part

2http://rashmun.sulekha.com/blog/post/2007/09/dvaita-vs-advaita-vadiraja\

-attacks-advaita-part-2.htm

 

[Comments Vadiraja:]And thus every statement made by you was untrue and

unrevelatory. And therefore the charge of " error speaking " is applicable

only to you, sir! ...Thus only Truth speakers (Dualists) were knowers of

the truth.

 

 

Comment on above by Stafford Betty: Dualists of Madhva's pursuation

refer to themselves as tattvavadins, meaning both " speakers of truth "

and " Realists " simultaneously. On the other hand, Dualists call a

Non-Dualist a mithyavadin--which means both " speaker of error " and

" illusionist " . Dualists consider themselves Realists;

they believe that the world, with all of its distinctions, is real--that

is, it is not the stuff of dreams, or a projection of consciousness, or

a phantasm. Non-dualists, on the other hand, call the world an illusion,

or a creation of the power of illusion, or maya (hence mayavadin, which

means the same as mithyavadin, is another name for the non-dualist).

Thus each term--tattvavadin, and mithyavadin or mayavadin--is at once a

tag of identification ( " Realist, " " Illusionist " ) and an estimate

( " speaker of truth " , " speaker of error " ).

----------------------

On Advatin epistemology :

There is a very long section in Vadiraja's book about the refutation of

Advatin epistemology; i am just posting one point of his in this

connection.

[Comments Vadiraja]:The procedure we will use here strikes at

the heart of the Illusionist's retaliatory formula. This procedure of

ours invalidates the vyahvarika position of the Illusionists and

establishes the ultimate reality of the world appearance by using the

very method which they use on others. Who could fail to admire this

procedure of ours, which in the end only disposes of this method of the

Illusionists. ...

 

.... Moreover, the Substrate-Consciousness would see the pot after having

" superimposed " on the pot a sharing of its nature with it. If not, your

guru would be angry.

Comment on above by Stafford Betty: In the introduction to his

Commentary on the Vedanta sutra, Sankara [the guru of all Advaitins]

says that the " real " and the " Unreal " have " superimposed upon each the

characterestic nature and the attributes of the other. " Vadiraja lets

his opponent know that he expects him to adhere closely to this orthodox

Non-dualist teaching--or " your guru would get angry. "

[Vadiraja will now, as usual, make excellent use of this doctrine to

reduce his adversary's position to adversity]:

Comments Vadiraja: In that case the thought " I am the pot " would be like

the thought " I am fair skinned, " and the soul abiding within the body

should observe, " I am the pot " . Why then does that soul act as if it

were thinking, " I perceive the pot? "

 

Comment on above by Stafford Betty: Non-dualists, he says, hold that the

body, mind, etc. is superimposed on the Substrate-Consciousness just as

objects like pots are. So why, he asks, should consciousness say on one

occasion, " I am fair skinned " of the body superimposed on it, but not

say " I am the pot " of the pot superimposed on it? After all, one

superimposition is like another. So why in the second case does

Consciousness say " I perceive the pot " rather than " I am the pot? " And

why, moreover, does it act not as if it were the pot, but as if it saw

the pot? This is just one more illogicality in the adversary's position.

 

 

 

 

An Advaitin's response to the above objection:

 

Illustration 1. in a dream i find myself in a busy mall. there are a

number of people doing business. i meet a friend there and we chat for a

brief while. i notice a flower vase made of ebony and ask the price.

(end of the dream).

 

In the dream, all the dream persons, objects, talks, etc. are made of

one material: the dream material which is consciousness. certainly no

artisan of the waking world put an ebony vase there in the dream. the

people are not of the flesh and blood of the waking. the entire mall is

of no weight, for it was in my mind alone. if it was really made of

brick, mortar and steel of the waking, i, the dreamer lying on my bed,

would have been crushed by its weight.

 

The illustration brings to the foreground the fact that despite the

entire variety of dream objects/people being made up of the same

material: consciousness, yet it is perfectly possible to have the

‘i’- feeling with respect to one body,

‘he/she’- feeling with respect to the other bodies and

‘it’- feeling with regard to the inert objects.

 

Illustration 2. supposing there is an expert in making wax models. he

has in his stock a variety of models of vegetables, fruits, etc. it is

evening time and suddenly there is a power failure. he finds his candle

and lights it and there is light sufficient for his activity.

 

Now, even though the models and the candle are of the same material:

wax, yet in order to give light it is the candle that is needed and not

any of the fruit/vegetable models. why is this so? it is because it is

only the candle that has a specific cylindrical/conical shape and a wick

running thru it. this unique feature is absent in the other wax objects

he has.

 

Similarly, despite the fact that the body and the pot are of the same

material in a superimposition, yet, it is the body alone that qualifies

to be the object of the feeling: ‘i am fair-skinned’. the

‘i’ can arise only in the body/mind as even though these

are made of the five elements, they alone have the unique capacity of

reflecting the consciousness of the atman/self. this feature is absent

in the pot even though it is also made of the elements. this is the

reason for the jiva getting the feeling of ‘i’ in the

body/mind complex alone and not in the pot. the body/mind identification

is expressed as: ‘i am the perceiver of the pot’. there is

no feeling ‘i am the pot’ because the pot cannot capture

the reflection of the consciousness just as the body/mind does.

 

The reason for this dichotomy is the presence of ignorance in the jiva.

it is because of ignorance the jiva identifies with just the body/mind

and sees every other person/object as different from himself. this is

the cause of bondage, samsara. the ‘i’ becomes the

experiencer of joy/sorrow and the ‘this’, the objective

world, becomes the experienced. the objective world, when interacted

with by the jiva, generates joy or sorrow. this is what samsara is.

 

The upanishads teach that this distinction should go and the means for

this is obtaining the knowledge that ‘i am all, everything, there

is none other than me.’ ‘aham brahma asmi’ (i am

brahman, the all).

 

Quite unwittingly Sri Vadiraja has pointed out, as a defect, what is

actually the ideal situation that the upanishad/advaita teach as the

mark of freedom from bondage. the Taittiriya upanishad iii chapter

contains the expression of joy by the truth-knowing person: ‘aham

annam, aham annam……aham annaado….etc. (iam the food and

the eater of the food.) the universal vision that the aspirant gains

affords no room for any difference whatsoever and that is the

realization that destroys all distinction. this makes the earlier

mistaken notion of difference between ‘i’ and the

‘pot’ an erroneous one, now replaced by ‘i am the

all’ . the ‘inert’ food (pot) is also experienced

to be consciousness in truth.

 

Thus it can be seen that there is no illogicality in (1) not getting the

feeling of ‘i’ in the pot and getting it only with respect

to the body/mind (in a superimposition) and (2) ultimately, when the

superimposition is gone, getting the feeling of ‘i’ in

everything, sentient and insentient.

 

 

(Long ago I had sent this article to the Advaitin List. It may be

available in the Files section. This post is just to bring to the fore

an objection from the Dvaita school on the Adhyasa component of Advaita

system and how the same could be addressed. Another objection from Sri

Vaadiraja was replied in an article titled: The Status and Role of

Scripture in Advaita - recently recollected.)

 

 

Om Tat Sat