________________
III. VI]
AVIDYA IN THE VEDÄNTA SCHOOL
121
principle of subjectivity and to work out its programme through a false belief in and attachment to the not-self and the subjective and the objective world constructed by it, then it can be equated with Gaudapada's concept of abhūtäbhiniveśa--the bias and predilection of the subject for the unreal plurality. After all it should be thought as subjective when personal as opposed to māyā which may be regarded as the substitute of the Sankhya conception of prakyti. In other words, māyā is the principle of cosmic illusion and avidyā is rather its product responsible for the creation of different subjects. Let us now turn to Sankara.
That the world of plurality and subject-object consciousness is there is a fact too obvious and too apparent to explain away. Scepticism leads to subjectivism, subjectivism to solipsism, and solipsism leads nowhere. Gaudapāda showed that it is only the existent that can appear. The non-existent cannot appear. Sankara examines experience and distinguishes the real from the apparent. Our experience contains truth as well as untruth, reality as well as appearance. The world is an illusion in the sense that it is a compound of truth and untruth. The unreal is superimposed upon the real. This superimposition or adhyāsa, as it is called, is the prius of experience. Sankara's famous Bhāşya on the Brahmasutra opens with a subtle analysis of our common experience. There he says: 'Object (vişaya) and subject (vişayin), having as their province the presentation of the 'thou' (yuşmat) and the l' (asmat), are of a nature as opposed as darkness and light. The transfer of the object, which has as its province the 'thou' (or the not-self), and its qualities to the pure spiritual subject, which has for its province the idea of the 'T' (or the self), and, conversely, the transfer of the subject and its qualities to the object, is logically false. Yet in mankind this procedure, resting on false knowledge (mithyājñāna-nimitta), of pairing together the true and the untrue (the subject and the object) is natural (naisargika), so that they transfer the being and qualities of the one to the other.'1 Our practical life depends upon this mutual transference or superimposition (adhyāsa). Our common experience is based on this adhyāsa. In ordinary cases of error also something is superimposed upon another, and in this respect there is no difference between the empirical and the transcendental error. The transcendental error can, in brief, be defined as the mutual identification of the not-self and the self. This transcendental error is called avidyā.2 On the nature and the function of this transcendental error (adhyāsa) Sarikara says: Adhyāsa we have described as cognition of that in not-that. For
1 SRh, Introduction to BS. This translation has been copied from IP, Vol. II, p. 506.
tam etam evamlakṣaṇam adhyāsaṁ panditā avidye 'ti manyante-Ibid. JP-16
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
