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AVIDYA IN VEDANTA*
E. A. Solomon
1. Avidya in Pre-Sankara Vedanta
Right from the later stage of the composition of the Vedic hymns the monotheistic tendency had started not only taking roots but also fast developing with the result that in the Nasadıya sūkta even the monistic tendency is quite evident and so also an attempt to describe the evolation of the world from one Ultimate Principle which defies description.
The Upanisads, whatever their differences, can be said to uphold that there is one Ultimate Reality which is one without a secord, pure, uninatured, and beginningless and endless. There are two kinds of descriptions of it (i) as omniscient, omnipotent, sentient, self-luminous, self-dependent, having all attributes, the creator, sustainer and devourer of the world. He creates himself as everything (Sa ātmānaṁ sarvam akuruta); that is to say, in later terminology. He is the upädäna käraṇa and the nimitta käraṇa of the world. (ii) The other set of thinkers define the Ultimate Reality as of the nature of Being, sentiency, Bliss, devoid of differentiation, and unmodified and devoid of all the attributes as are found in the mundane world, which could only be said to be 'not this, not this,' but is the Ultimate Absolute Reality.
The Vedantins must have been confronted with the problem as to how the Ultimate Non-dual Principle could be pure and eternally unchanging and yet be the upadana (constituent or material cause) out of which everything evolved. The individual souls could, perhaps, be said to be the sentient Ultimate Principle conditioned or limited by the different adjuncts (upadhis), viz body, etc.; but earth, water, etc. and all the insentient things of the world would certainly have to be said to be the effects of, that is to say, different modifications or transformations of Brahman or Atman, the Supreme Principle, and there was sufficient proof for this in the Upanisads.
Though some support could be found in many Upanisadic statements, if carried to the logical extreme, for the view that the phenomenal world is unreal (vācārambhaṇam vikāro namadheyam..., neti neti, neha nānāsti kimcana, etc.), yet this view, there is reason to believe, did *Two university lectures delivered at L. D. Institute of Indology on 28-2-1984. Sambodhi XI-8
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