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VIVEKACŪDĀMAŅI
221
needs a variegated upadhi. Therefore, whether one likes it or not, buddhi too which is its cause must be held to be beginningless.
Now, the guru speaks about its cessation. This effect of avidyā is destroyed along with its root cause when correct knowledge dawns. This knowledge arises from the Upanişads, and is of the nature of pramā (as opposed to bhrama), which is the direct intuitive perception of the adhisthāna or substratum.
The word tu in the second line of śloka 200 is intended to negate the opposite view that there is no destruction to what is beginingless.
āvidyakam: means 'the result of avidyā'.
anādyapi: though beginningless, i.e., though postulated to be beginningless to account for the activities of creation etc., it gets destroyed along with its root cause sleep. On waking all dream objects disappear. Not only do the dream objects disappear, but the root cause, namely, sleep too entirely disappears on waking. So too on waking to samyag-jñāna, the primordial avidyā disappears with its associations. Like light and darkness, vidyā and avidyā are opposed to each other. Likewise sleep and waking. When avidyā is destroyed by vidyā, then buddhi which is the effect of avidyā is also destroyed (avidyā is the cause of the perception of plurality; vidyā gives the perception of oneness). Therefore, the srutis declare: tatra ko mohaḥ kaśśokaḥ ekatvamanupaśyataḥ (īsā.): "Whence is grief or delusion for him who sees oneness?" yatra sarvam ātmaivābhūt tat kena kam paśyet (Chānd.): "Where everything is the ātman, what can be perceived and by whom?” yatra nānyat paśyati nanyat śrņoti nānyat vijānāti sa bhūmā (Chānd.): "Where one does not see any other thing, does not hear any other thing, does not know any other thing, that is infinite". When that all-inclusive knowledge arises, the avidyā which is the cause of the variegated samsāra is destroyed from its roots. Like the tree withering away when the roots are destroyed, when avidyā is destroyed, its effects buddhi etc., also fade away.
When sleep is lost, pleasure and pain experienced (reflected) in it do not attach to the man who has awakened. Even so, to the man of true wisdom do not attach the experiences of samsāra which arose during the pendency of avidyā: for their ground has disappeared.
By the expression anādyapi etc., the guru gives an illustration from the standpoint of the opponent who contradicts the view that even for what is beginningless there is an end.
