Traverses on Less Trodden Path of Indian Philosophy and Religion

Author(s): Yajneshwar S Shastri
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 107

Traverses on less trodden path...
the Upanişads, 59 it is not possible to account for the world appearance. There must be admitted some principal or power wbich superimposes the manifold of scnse on the st persenseous Supreme Brahman. This extraneous principle, the Advaitins call Māyā or illusion. This doctrine plays a very vital role in the Advaita philosophy. On this edifice Advaita metaphysics is well established. The Advaitin's analysis of illusion is very subtle and far more satisfactory than that of Vijnanavădins.
The nature of Māya is such that it is neither real por unreal and therefore anirvacapiya 40 i.e., indescribable. It is power of God, indistinguishable from him, just as the burning power of fire is from the fire itself. 1 It is neither real like Brahman nor unreal like son of a barren woman. It is existent but not real like Brahman. It is destroyed by realisation of Brahman. 42 The statement that the world is Maya or mithyt means that it is an appearance of reality in a form which is not its essential and ultimate nature and has no being after the dawn of right knowledge about it. It is to be inferred through its effects by our intellingence.48 It operatos in three ways as positive wrong knowledge, as doubt and as absence of knowledge. Really it cannot do any harm to reality, just as mirage water cannot make the sandy desert muddy. Its function is twofold; it superimposes and conceals (ävaraña) the real nature of the object and shows up in its place some other object, it conceals Brahman and shows up in its place the universe and the world of souls. It not only makes us not apprehend Brahman, but creates some other things in its place. It conceals the Brahman in the sense of preventing the igoorant individual from realising his real nature,
39. (a) Isopanişad-15.
(b) Kathopanişad-I. 24-5. (c) Mundakopnişad--II. 1. 10. (d) Chandog yopanişad-I, 1, 10. VI. I-4. (6) Prasnopanişad-I, 16. (f) Svetaśvataropanişad-1, 10, IV, 9.10. The Principal Upanişads with Sankarabhāşya. Pub: Motilal Banarasidass, Delhi,
1978. 40, Vivekacūdāmani-III, Works of Sankarācārya, Vol-14, Pub. Vani Vilas Press,
Srirangam, p-21, 22. 41. Brahmasü trasařkarabhāşya (BSB)-I. IV. 14. with Ratnaprabhā, Bhāmati and
Anandagiri Vyākhyā, ed; Mahadeva Shastri Bakre, Pub. Nirnayasagar Press,
Bombay, 1909, 42. Jñate dvaitam na vidyate-Mândükyakárikā, Agamaprakarana-78, The Principal
Upanigads with San karabhagya p. p. 191, 43, Karyānumeyā-Vivekacūdāmani-110, p. 21,