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Chapter Seven
ADVAITA TRENDS IN JAINISM
Avidya: The Cause of Bondage
Spiritualism is an essential feature of Indian mind. It always endeavours after spiritual light or the vision of truth. Hence the Vedic prayer "lead me from falsity to Truth, from darkness to light, from death to immorality." Bondage is the process of birth and rebirth, the consequent miseries. Liberation therefore is the stoppage of this process.1 The vision of truth is the vision of freedom. Ignorance therefore is the cause of the bondage.
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This is the principle which acts as the hindrance against the apprehension of truth, obstructs our innate capacity to know the truth. This is our degeneration or descent. Hence knowledge is essential for liberation and hence the prayer.
The seeds of Vedantic (Advaitic) thought can be traced in the Upanisads, where Avidya is perversity of vision and attachment to the world. Maya is the cosmic force that brings forth the world of plurality. If the Maya conditions the universe, Avidya keeps one attached to it. There is Maya because there is Avidya. To Gaudapada, Māyā is the cosmic illusion and the avidya the individual ignorance - a result of it. Sankara postulates Maya to explain origination of cosmic illusion while Avidya the individual. However the freedom is the goal. But this freedom is only through knowledge (Jñanat-eva-tu-Kaivalyam) without knowledge there is no emancipation (Rte-Jñanānna Muktiḥ3). The purpose of man (is effected) through the mere knowledge of Brahman
1. Bhagavad-Gita, 2. 51; Katha-Upanisad, 1. 3. 7-8. 2. Malkani, G. R.: Vedantic Epistemology, p. 3.
3. Rg-veda.
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