Sambodhi 1984 Vol 13 and 14

Author(s): Dalsukh Malvania, Ramesh S Betai, Yajneshwar S Shastri
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 36

Conception of Maya (Illusion in Asanga's vijnanavāda Buddhism
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the Upanişads, 39' it is not possible to account for the world-appearance. There must be admitted some principle or power which superimposes the manifold of sense on the supersensuous and Supreme Brahman. This extraneous principle, the Advaitins call Mayā or illusion. This doctrine plays a very vital role in the Advaita philosophy. On this edifice Advaita metaphysics is well established. The Advaitins analysis of illusion is very subtle and far more satisfactory than that of Vijñā navadins.
The nature of Māyā is such that it is neither real nor unreal and therefore anirvacaniya 4. i.c, indescribable. It is power of God, indistinguishable from Hin, just as the burning power of fire is from the fire itself+ 1. It is neither real like Brahman nor unreal like son of a barren woman. It is existent but nor real like Brahman. Tois destroyed by realisation of Brahman42. The statement that the world is Māyā or mithya means that it is an appearance of reality in a form which is not its essential and ultimate nature and has no being after the dawn of right knowledge about it. It is to be inferred through its effects by our intellingence+3. It operates in three ways as positive wrong knowledge as doubt and as absence of knowledge. Really it cannot do any harm to reality, just as mirage water cannot make the Sandy desert muddy. Its function is twofold; it superimposes and conceals (cāvarana) the real nature of the object and shows up in its place some other object. It conceals Brahman and shows up in its place the universe and the world of souls. It not only makes us not apprehend Brahman, but creates some other thing in its place. It conceals the Brahman in the sense of preventing the ignorant individual from realising his real nature, just as a patch of cloud conceals the sun by preventing a person from preventing the sun 14. Though it is the creative power of God, it does not affect God, just as magician is unaffccted by his own magical powers. We can only say that Brahman appears as the world; even Sankara aptly remarks that Maya or nescience is co-evel with life. We do not know how or when we got into it. Nobody walks into illusion consciously. We can only know how to get out of it. It is the result of a false identification of the Real and the unreal. It is the nature of man's experience 47. But without Maya no human activity is possible. All intellectual, religious moral and social activities presuppose Māya. Every one of our activities is the work of Maya.48 The world is product of Māya. The world itself is Māya in the sense that it is only apparent. It is real for practical purposes, but vanishes after the realisation of Brahman. The word Maya or Mithya is used in Advaita Vedanta to emphasize the ultimate unreality of the world. It is real so far as empirical life is concerned but becomes