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by any means of valid knowledge.70 The fundamental objection raised by Jain thinkers against Advaitinis, whether the doctrine of Maya (Cosmic illusion) adopted to explain this multiplicity of the phenomenal world is real or unreal. If it is real, then it destroyes the non-dual nature of Brahman and leads to an inevitable duslisin. If it is unreal, then this world which is caused by Maya will not be possible. To say that Maya is unreal and still it creates this world is as absurd as to say that a woman is barren and that she is a mother. 71 And the advaitins themselves accept the theory that the real thing cannot be produced from unreal thing. Again, the very statement that Maya is indescribable. i.e. neither existent nor non-existent on account of being existent in the state of mundane life and no more at the state of realization, indicates, that it is describable in terms of either existent on the phenomenal level or non-existent in the state of liberation. To say that Māya is indescribable is self-contradictory like saying that I am silent throughout the life and my father is bachelor.72 Vidyānandi further, argues that, if we grant that Māyā exists, then where does it exist. Neither Brahman nor Jiva can be locus of Māya. It cannot exist in supreme Brahman which is pure consciousness by nature. If it exists in Brahman, then cannot be called pure consciousness on account of being associated with Māyā. Even individual self is pure consciousness by nature and in cssence, it is not different from Brahman and this free from all taint of Māyā. If Māya. is an independent reality like Brahman and co-eval with it from the beginningless time, then it will be an impossible task to annihilate it by any means of liberation and the consequence of this indestructibility of Māyā is an eternal bondage of the soul. It is argued that Māya exists (lihāvarūpa) but it cannot bc eternal like Brahman nor it be an independent entity. Though it is not capable of being determined by logic, still the denial of its existence would be contradiction of a felt fact and without adopting, this doctrine of Mayā, it is not possible to solve the problem of relation between tlic Absulute and the phenomena, Individual self and the Brahman, the real and the unreal. Here, again, one may argue why should such kind of illogical and irrational concept be accepted at all? Instead of postulating this kind of unreal principle (Māyā) as the cause of the world, it is better to accept the view that the world is both different as well as non-different from the Brahman. The relation between the Absolute and the world is to be identity-cum-difference. An advantage of accepting this view is that there is no necessity of denying any one of the felt facts, the world and its cause-the Absolute. 73
Rāmānujācāryā's seven important objections (anupapattis) against Māyāvada
