Sambodhi 2014 Vol 37

Author(s): J B Shah
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 66

58
Vijay Pandya
SAMBODHI
view of Advaitavādins. Vyāsayati, the author of the Nyāyāmrta has critically examined the position of the Sankaraites and lambasted it in severest terms. Madhusūdana Sarasvati has attempted in his Advaitasiddhi to refute the arguments of the opponents, particularly of Vyasayati. Avidyā has been characterised as beginningless positive entity, removable by knowledge (anādibhāvarūpatve sati jñāna nirvrtyā sā) The opponent argues that this characterisation of avidya does not hold good in the case of शुक्तिका-रजत because here avidyā is not beginningless-anādi in time.
Moreover, the rolehy character of avidyā has also been seriously challenged by the Madhavaites. According to Sankaraites, the ajnana is positive in its character and is the material cause of the world, both negative and the positive aspects of the world. If negation (abhāva) has for its cause a positive entity (bhāva), argues the opponent, it can very well be said that even the unreal (asatya) may have the real as its cause. In such a case, the illusion will never be destroyed because it will share the qualities of its cause.
The Advaita-siddhi refutes these arguments by saying that the ajñāna which forms the stuff of the illusory silver is the beginningless ajñāna itself which has manifested itself through the limitation of shell and hence there is no difficulty when avidyā is said to be positive, it is meant to be conveyed that it is not negative. Avidyā as advaitins often emphsize, is in fact, neither positive not negative. Moreover, Madhusūdana argues that, it is by no means true that the effect must be exactly of the same kind of stuff as the cause. Things absolutely similar or absolutely dissimilar cannot be related as cause and effect otherwise the real would be the material cause of the unreal. And in that case, as the real never ceases to manifest itself and never undergoes a change, the unreal also will never cease to exist. But the real can be the substratum of the unreal. The Sankaraite says that what is unreal in an appearance originates from avidyā, but as for the sat-element, the is-ness, it is to be referred to the locus-consciousness, which though unchangeable is always present in, and through all, appearances and which is unaffected thereby. Yet the unchangeable Brahman cannot itself be the cause of something which undergoes constant change. Hence avidyā which is false and inexplicable is the material cause of the phenomenal world whose nature is such.
Advaitasiddhi gives one more definition of avidyā. It says that it is the stuff of illusion यद् वा भ्रमोपादानत्वम् अज्ञानलक्षणम्. What is meant is that it is changing and material. The opponent argues that illusion being itself different from a