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the Adapira of Brahman is not destroyed, Brahman is not really affected by it. The rope is not really affected if it is mistaken as a snake. The Shell does not become silver if it is mistaken as that. Mirage water cannot make the sandy desert muddy. Müyü in Brahman is ignorance only in the sense of the power of producing ignorance and illusion in individuals: it does not afl'ect the Brahman any more than the inagician's power of creating an illusion affects his own knowledge. We may also agree with Madnanas 9 Misra and" Vācaspati Misra that the individual self and Avidyż go on determining each other in a beginningless cycle. Avidya comes from the Jiva and the Jiyas from Avidya. It does not involve the logical flaw of Interdependence or Pititio-Principle because, this process is beginningless, as in the case of the seed and the sprout. So, no fault should be found with this explanation. The difficulty arises only if we regard the one as preceding to other. But if we regard ignorance and individuality as but the two interdependent aspects of the same fact as a circle and its circumference or a triangle and its side, tlie difficulty does not arise. Rāmānuja himself, when he fails to explain the cause of bondage of the pure soul, falls back upon the nation that the relation of Karma and ignorance with the soul is beginningless. Again, Maya or Avidya does not really conceal the real nature of Brahman. Concealment does not mean destruction of essential nature, as Rämänuja and others think. The ignorance conceals Brahman in the sense preventing the ignorant individual froni realizing his real nature, just as a patch af cloud conceals the sun by preventing a person from perceiving a sun. So, ignorance does not do any harm to the nature of Brahman just as cloud does not destroy the self-manifesting nature of the sun. The Sun does not cease to be selfrevealing because the blind cannot see it.' 1 It is also said that, nature of Avidyâ canot be proved. It is neither positive, por negative. If it is positive, it cannot be destroyed and there would be Advaita, the other reality being Brahman. If it is merely negative it cannot produce world illusion. It is also said that, if the Nirguna Brahman has to restore to Māyā or Apidya to account for something, Brahman would cease to be one without a second. But, Maya is germinal power of Brahman which is neither the ..very nature of Braluman nor something different form it. Nature of Brahman
is not affected by it. Brahman is untouched by blemishes of Maya. Just as the face is not affected by any blemishes associated with the mirror in which it is reflected, Brahman does in no way lose its nature in any cireunstance. Aridyū is felt, fact thus, it cannot be deniccl. It is destroyeci after right knowledge, so, it is not real. This self controdictory nature is realized only when one rises above it and not before. Again, Māyā is said
