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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.org
Acharya Shri Kailashsagarsuri Gyanmandir
480
Ātman and Moksa
and rūpa is a fictitious creation of the infinite adjuncts which arise out of avidyā or nescience. S'arkara describes Māyā as neither real like Brahman nor unreal like the sky-flower.' Avidyā or nescience has a more subjective meaning while Māyā has an objective reference. It consists in actually produciug things of various magnitudes and varieties and the jīvas are deluded by them. Like Avidyā it has the two functions of concealment of the real and the projecting the unreal. Māyā cannot be related to Brahman as there is no second to the Brahman. It cannot be related to it by means of conjunction (Hz) because it takes place only between two independent substances or entities; but to the Brahman Māyā is non-entity.
Māyā exists as real for those who have not attained the Brahman. As S. Radhakrishnan puts it--"Māyā is the energy of isvara, his inherent force, by which he transforms the potential into the actual world. His Māyā which is unthinkable, transforms itself into the two modes of desire (Kāma–#78 ) and determination (then). It is the creative power of the eternal God, and is therefore eternal; and by 'means of it the supreme Lord creates the world.... It is in Isvara even as heat is in fire. Its presence is inferred from its effects. Māyā is identified with the names and forms which, in their unevolved condition, inhere in Isvara, and in their developed state constitute the world. In this sense it is synonymous
S'amkara (Com.) on Vedānta Sītras. Tr. Thibaut, 1.4.3, Vol. I, p. 243.
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