Book Title: World of Philosophy
Author(s): Christopher Key Chapple, Intaj Malek, Dilip Charan, Sunanda Shastri, Prashant Dave
Publisher: Shanti Prakashan
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"nirgu?a Brahman", "māyā/avidyā". According to Visistādvaitains, there is no entity without identity. Brahman is not an exception to this rule. In order to identify Brahman it is necessary that we approach Brahman through its qualities Thus Brahman is sagunātmaka. Similarly, the individual selves and the world are not distinct from Brahman. They are the attributes of Brahman. In other words, Brahman is qualified by cit and acit. And this Brahman is none other than the supreme God (Visnu). The relation between Brahman (God) and the individual selves and the world is an inseparable relation (aprathaksiddhi).It is also termed as soul-body relation.
Śri Rāmānuja exhibited great dialectical skills to disprove Advaitic interpretation of māyā/avidyā. The entire Advaita metaphysics can be summarized in the following way: 1. Brahman is real; 2. Brahman creates the world in association with māyā; 3. The nature of māyā/avidyā is inexplicable 4. Brahman limited by mayay/avidya is the individual self (jīva); 5. Knoeldge of Brahman alone can destroy māyā/avidyā. The following are the seven important objections raised against Advaita metaphysics by Śrī Rāmānuja. 1. According to Sankara, "Avidyā is paramesvarasraya, that is, it depends upon Brahman. And in it avidya, jivas, having lost their identity with Brahman, rest."18 if Brahman is nirguna and nirviśesa, then there is no scope for avidyā to reside in Brahman. Avidyā as an entity must belong to something or to someone. To whom does it belong? It cannot belong to Brahman, which is of the nature of pure Consciousness. And it cannot belong to the individual self (jīva), for the jīva is the product of avidyā. In other words, avidyā must exist prior to the individual self in order to produce it. Therefore, individual self cannot be locus of avidya. To quote Sri Rāmānuja's view in this context:
Brahman, the non-differentiated consciousness, is the only reality, and all this manifoldness is imagined in It alone and is false. Due to the effect of Beginingless nescience which is unspeakable, the manifoldness is wrongly imagined in the one non-dual Brahman
which is pure consciousness. 19 2. Avidyā is said to conceal the real nature of Brahman as it possesses the power of concealment (āvarana sakti). This must happen before Brahman becomes individual self (jīva). But Brahman being pure Consciousness, it can be concealed only when it forgets itself. But it can forget itself only when it is concealed by avidyā. This is another vicious circle.
3. According to Advaitins, we cannot understand the nature of avidyā. We cannot say whether it is positive or negative. If it is positive it cannot be destroyed by knowledge as contended by the Advaitins. Knowledge only rec
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