Traverses on Less Trodden Path of Indian Philosophy and Religion

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

Page 108

Conception of Mäyä...
just as a patch of cloud conceals the sun by preventing a person from perceiving the sun. 44 Though it is the creative power of God, it does not affect God, just as magician is unaffected by his own magical power. 4 $ We can only say that Brahman appears as the world; even Sankara aptly remarks that Mayā or nescience is co-evel with life. We do not know how or when we got into it. Nobody walks into illusion consciously. We can only know how to get out of it. It is the result of a false identification of the Real and the unreal. It is the nature of man's experience. 47 But without Maya no human activity is possible. All intellectual, religious moral and social activities presuppose Māyā. Every one of our activities is the work of Mayā.48 The world is product of Māya. The world itself is Māyā in the sense that it is only apparent. It is real for practical purposes, but vanishes after the realisation of Brahman. The word Mays of Mithya is used in Advaita Vedānta to emphasize the ultimate unreality of the world. It is real so far as empirical life is concerned but becomes sublated when knowledge dawns. But so long as we are in this world. we cannot take it to be unreal. 49 .
Both Vijñānavāda and Advaita Vedanta advocate anirvacanıyakhyati i.e.. non-describability of error. For both, Reality is non-dual, puro consciousness which is direct, immediate and self-luminous and is the transcendental background of the world of phenomana which is its appearance due to the power of beginningless ignorance. But the differ. ence between Vijñīnavada view-point and Advaita view-point is that in Vijñānavada, the Reality is affected and defiled by illusion and tranforms into the phenomenal world while in Advaita the Absolute Reality-Brahman is unaffected, neutral and is not subject to transformation. The world is Vivarta of Brahman,50 This world is superimposed on Brahman by illusion as snake is superimposed on the rope, silver op shell etc. Illusion consists in mistaking the given for something else, In the statement this is a snake, rope is mistaken for a snake. But this rope must be there as the substratum of snake appearance. Though rope appears as a snake, it is unaffected by soake appearance. Similarly, Brahman
44. Ghanacchanadraştil ghanacchannamarkam yathä nişprabham manyate catimüdhah. 45. Yathā svayam prasaritamāyayā māyāyi trişvapi kāleşu na samspraśyate avastutatvät,
evem paramātmäpi samsäramāyaya na samspraśyata iti-BSB-111.9. 46. Rajvä iva sarpädibhävena iti-Ibid III. 9. 47. Satyäorte mithunikstya ahamidam, mamedam iti gaisar gika ayam loka vyavahärah
Ibid-Adhyāsabhasya-p. 9-10. 48. Avidyāvat venai va jivasya sarvah vyavahäral santato vartate-BSB-I.IV. 3. 49. BSB-II.I. 11. 50. Vivarta yasyaire-Bhāmati-Verse-1, BSB-p. 1.