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III. VI]
AVIDYA IN THE VEDANTA SCHOOL
II3
VI
AVIDYA IN THE VEDANTA SCHOOL
In this section, our enquiry will be confined to the Upanişads and the works of Gaudapāda and Sankara. The seeds of the Vedānta conception of avidyā and māyā can be traced in the Upanişads, and as such we shall refer to those passages of the Upanisads where the traces of the conception are apparent. Gaudapāda, in his Agamaśāstra, developed the conception, and finally Sankara unfolded its implications and made a consistent theory of it. We shall not refer to the postSankara developments in view of the limited scope of our enquiry. We shall deal only with the most salient features of the problem and avoid the subtle dialectics on which Sankara based his theory. Our treatment thus will in no sense be full or complete, not to speak of its perfection.
Let us begin with the Upanişads. The ultimate reality, according to the Upanișads, is devoid of all plurality, and it is only perverted outlook that is responsible for our perception of plurality. The Upanişads denounce plurality in the strongest possible terms. The Brhadāranyaka says 'By the mind alone is it to be comprehended. There is in it no plurality. He who sees any semblance of plurality in it goes from death to death.' Plurality is only apparent. One goes from death to death, that is, one is subject to birth and death, so long as one does not cease seeing plurality. The cycle of birth and death ceases only when oneness is realized. The Iśā Upanişad says: 'But one who sees all things in the self and the self in all things is not repulsed by it because of the realization of truth. When to him, who knows, the self has become all things, how can any more there be delusion and sorrow for him who sees oneness?'2 Delusion and sorrow, in one word, the worldly life, can appear only if there is perception of plurality. Worldly life ceases when oneness is realized. But what is responsible for this perception of plurality? What is this perversity of vision due to? The world is a fact and a beginningless fact at that. But what does its nature consist in? Why do we see plurality and not the oneness? Why do we see the world and not the basis that sustains it? The Upanişads are fully conscious of the problems, and also the difficulty of formal enunciation of their answers, and it is
I manasai 'và 'nudrastavyar ne 'ha nānā 'sti kiñcana mộtyoh sa mộtyum apnoti ya iha näne 'va paśyati.
---ByUp, IV. 4. 19. Also cf. Kaup, II. 4. 10-11. 2 yas tu sarväņi bhūtāny atmany evā 'nupaśyati
sarvabhūteņu cā "tmānam tato na vijugupsate. yasmin sarvāṇi bhūtāny atmai 'vā 'bhūd vijānataḥ tatra ko mohaḥ kaḥ śoka ekatvam anupaśyataḥ.
--IUP, 6-7. JP-15
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