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III. VI]
AVIDYĀ IN THE VEDĀNTA SCHOOL
115
Now let us see the Upanisa dic conception of māyā. In the Rgveda, wherever the word māyā occurs it is used only to signify the might or the power. Indra takes many shapes quickly by his māyā. Yet sometimes māyā and its derivatives māyin and māyāvat are employed to signify the will of the demons, and we also find the word used in the sense of illusion or show. The Svetāśvatara Upanişad conceives mäyä as the power of the Almighty God. "The Māyin (God) creates all this—the sacred verses, the offerings, the sacrifices, the penances, the past, the future, and all that the Vedas declare_from this (akşara or the immutable one); and the other (i.e. the individual jiva) is bound up with that (akşara) through māyā. Know that prakrti is māyā and Maheśvara (the Great Lord) is the Māyin. The whole world is filled with what are His members.'? This God spreads His trap and lords it over the world by means of His divine powers. The world is one Great Māyā. This Cosmic Māyā (viśva-māyā) can be ended by meditating upon, joining, and finally becoming one with that Great God. This is what we get about the conception of māyā in the Upanişads.
To sum up: Avidyā is perversity of vision and attachment to the world. Māyā is the cosmic force that brings forth the world of plurality. If the māyā conditions the universe, avidyä keeps one attached to it. There is māyā because there is avidyā. With the cessation of avidyā, māyä сeases. The existence of a magician and his art depends upon the existence of their dupes. If there is no dupe there is no art of magic, Let us now see the vicissitudes of this conception in later times.
We now come to Gaudapāda. The Upanişadic conception of reality as beyond reach of mind and intellect had much influence on later Buddhist thought. Nāgārjuna developed the seeds of the Upanisadic thoughts into full-fledged dialectic, and criticized every metaphysical concept as untenable and self-contradictory. This dialectic had great influence on the philosophy of Gaudapāda who utilized the art with much ability. He accepts the logic of Nāgārjuna and applies it to the world and the Upanisadic texts alike and thus he gives us for the first time the philosophy of the Upanişads in the proper sense of the term. He rejected the phenomenal world as illogical and self-contradictory. The doctrine of causality, in all its forms, is found to be untenable and absurd. We shall not discuss all these problems here, our enquiry being limited to the particular problem of avidyā
2 SUP, IV. 9-10.
1 IP, Vol. I, pp. 103-4. 3 Cf. ya eko jālavān isata iśanibhiḥ
sarvān lokān isata iśanibhiḥ.-Ibid., III. I. * Ibid., I. 10. 5 See AS, IV from kärika 3.
Also cf. V. 3.
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