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Indian Philosophy v2.c26.s22: XXXI Avidyā

Indian Philosophy v2.c26.s22

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XXXI Avidyā

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The concept of māyā is intimately related with that of avidyā. There are passages in Śaṃkara where the world of experience is traced to the force of avidyā. The cause of the appearance of the world is to be sought in the nature of the intellect, and not in that of Brahman. Brahman exists entire and undivided in the smallest object, and the appearance of plurality is due to the intellect which works according to the laws of space, time and causality. In the Introduction to his commentary on the Brahma Sūtra he points out how avidyā is the force that launches us into the dream of life. The tendency to confuse the transcendental and the empirical standpoints, or adhyāsa, however erroneous, is natural to the human mind. It is the result of our cognitive mechanism.² As we perceive by our senses sound and colour, while the reality is mere vibrations, even so we accept the variegated universe for the reality of Brahman, of which it is the effect. Through an examination of the subjective side of experience, Śaṃkara argues that we cannot attain to a knowledge of reality, so long as we are subject to avidyā, or the logical mode of thinking. Avidyā is the fall from intuition, the mental deformity of the finite self that disintegrates the divine into a thousand different fragments. Darkness is the privation of light. Avidyā is what Deussen calls "the innate obscuration of our knowledge,"¹ the twist of the mind which makes it impossible for it to see things except through the texture of space-time-cause. It is not conscious dissimulation, but the unconscious tendency of the finite mind, which lives by the imperfect standards of the world. It is the negative power which shuts us from our godlike existence. The appearance of Brahman as the world is due to our avidyā, even as the appearance of the rope as the snake is due to defective senses. When we see the rope as it is, the snake becomes unreal. When we see the reality of Brahman, the appearance of the world will flee away. That which is proved to be an unreality by a higher experience cannot be connected with reality except through a confusion of standpoints. The appearances stand transfigured in the Absolute. If we are asked to connect the image of the snake with the reality of the rope, we say that no connection is possible between what is and what is not. We have only to blame the eye for the image. When we see the rope as rope, there is an end of the matter, and we say that the rope appeared as the snake. Relativity has no cause except defective insight. It operates no farther than the fact that we see things, while there is only caitanya, or pure consciousness. Avidyā is either absence of knowledge or doubtful and erroneous knowledge. It is not simply negative, but is also positive in character (bhāvarūpa). When Śaṁkara argues that the existence of avidyā is patent to all, he means only that there is the fact of finiteness. It is said that everybody has the feeling that he does not know everything.² The evidence for its existence is universal in scope, since all finite minds share the deficiency.

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² S.B., Introduction.

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¹ D.S.V., p. 302.

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² Aham ajña ityādyanubhavāt. See Vedāntasāra, p. iv.

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Avidyā in the Upaniṣads is only ignorance as distinct from knowledge possessed by the individual subject.³ In Śaṁkara it becomes the logical way of thinking, which constitutes the finiteness of the human mind. It is not a nonentity like the son of a barren woman, since it appears and is experienced by all of us; nor is it an entity, real and absolute, since it is destroyed by intuitional knowledge. If it were non-being, it could not produce anything; if it were being, what it produces must also be real and not phenomenal. "It is neither real nor phenomenal, nor is it both."¹ Though its origin and explanation are beyond our reach, the conditions of its operation through the mental categories are discernible. Whence comes this avidyā, the source of all ignorance, sin and misery? Avidyā cannot be the cause of individuality, for it cannot exist unless there are individuals. If it is the cause of individuality, it must exist independent of that, i.e. must belong to the one ultimate reality, Brahman. But avidyā cannot belong to Brahman, whose nature is one of eternal light repugnant to avidyā.² It cannot reside in Brahman, as Sarvajñātmamuni thinks; it cannot reside in the individual, as Vācaspati believes.³ To say that Brahman modified is the seat of avidyā is useless, for the question is, how can Brahman be modified apart from avidyā? Rāmānuja urges that we have to assume a different avidyā for each soul, since, otherwise, the release of one soul will mean the release of all. It follows that avidyā takes account of the distinction of the souls, which it does not cause and therefore cannot explain. We have here circular reasoning.⁴ Śaṃkara escapes from

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³ See Chān. Up., i. 1. 10; Bṛh. Up., iv. 3. 20; iv. 4. 3.

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¹ Vivecacūḍāmaṇi, p. 3.

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² "God is light, and in him is no darkness at all" (1 John v; 2 Cor. vi. 14).

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³ See Śrīdhara's Nyāyakandalī, R.B., ii. 1. 15.

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⁴ R.B., ii. 1. 15; S.P.S., i. 21-24; v. 13-19, 54.

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Pārthasārathi Miśra puts the objection thus: "Is this avidyā misapprehension or something else which causes misapprehension? If the former, whose (is this avidyā)? It cannot be Brahman's, whose nature is pure knowledge. In the sun there is no place for darkness. It cannot belong to the souls, since they are not distinct from Brahman. As avidyā cannot exist, no more can a second thing, the cause thereof. Besides, for those who regard misapprehension or cause of it as something additional to Brahman, non-duality vanishes. Whence arose Brahman's avidyā? There is no other, since Brahman is the sole entity. If it be said that it is natural to Brahman, how can ignorance be the nature of him whose nature is knowledge?" Kim bhrāntijñānam? kiṃ vā bhrāntijñānakāraṇabhūtam, vastvantaram? yadi bhrāntiḥ sā kasya? na brahmaṇas tasya svacchavidyārūpatvāt, na hi bhāskare timirayāvakāśaḥ saṃbhavati; na jīvānām; teṣāṃ brahmātirekeṇābhāvāt. Bhrāntyabhāvād eva ca, tat kāraṇabhūtam vastvantaram apy anupapannam eva. Brahmātirekeṇa bhrāntijñānam tat kāraṇam cābhyupagacchatām advaitahāniḥ, kiṃkṛtā ca brahmaṇo 'vidyā, na hi kāraṇāntaram asti. Svābhāvikīti cet, katham the difficulty by declaring avidyā to be inexplicable. The question is meaningless in Śaṁkara’s metaphysics. We cannot make a transcendent use of an empirical category. We know that there is avidyā, and the question of its cause is meaningless, even as the question of the rise of finite spirits is. If we can understand the relation of Ātman to avidyā, we must be beyond the two.¹ Again, if avidyā were an essential property of the Ātman, the latter could never get rid of it; but the Ātman does not take in or part with anything whatsoever. It cannot belong to any finite being, whether he be God or man, since the latter must first be created in order that his avidyā may be possible. So his creation cannot be due to his or anyone else’s avidyā. The individualisation of Brahman, the rise of finite spirits, cannot be due to the avidyā characteristic of finite life. It is an occurrence due to divine activity. But how avidyā and Brahman can coexist is just the problem for which we do not have any solution. Śaṁkara says: “We admit that Brahman is not the product of avidyā or is itself deluded, but we do not admit that there is another deluded conscious being (besides Brahman) which could be the producer of the ignorance.”² According to Saṁkṣepaśārīraka, “Undifferenced absolute intelligence is the locus (āśraya) and object (viṣaya) of avidyā.”³ Deussen says: “In reality there is nothing else besides Brahman alone. If we

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¹ S.B.G., xiii. 2.

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² S.B. on Bṛh., i. 4. 10. Lakṣmīdhara says in his Advaitamakaranda: “How should avidyā touch the self-illumined soul by whose light alone is caused the saying, ‘I shine not’? Nevertheless, there does appear in the sky of consciousness some such mist as this, animated by absence of reflection and lasting till the sun of reflection arises” (16-17).

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³ i. 319. Āśrayatvaviṣayatvabhāginī nirvibhāgacitir eva kevalā.

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vidyāsvabhāvam avidyāsvabhāvaṁ syāt? (Śāstradīpikā, pp. 313-4; also p. 113).

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Kumārila argues against the Advaita thus: “If Brahman is self-established and of pure form, there is nothing else beside it. What brings about the activity of avidyā which resembles a dream? If you say that some other causes it, or that it is different from Brahman, then non-dualism disappears; if it were its nature, then it can never be destroyed.”

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Svayaṁ ca śuddharūpatvād abhāvāc cānyavastunaḥ
Svapnād iva avidyāyāḥ pravṛttis tasya kiṁ kṛtā.
Anyenapaplave ’bhiṣṭe dvaitavādaḥ prasajyate
Svābhāvikīm avidyāṁ tu nocchettuṁ kiñcid arhati.
(S.V., Sambandhākṣepaparihāra, pp. 84-85.)

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imagine that we perceive a transformation (vikāra) of him into the world, a division (bheda) of him into a plurality of individuals, this depends on avidyā. But how does this happen? How do we manage to deceive ourselves into seeing a transformation and a plurality, where in reality Brahman alone is? On this question our authors give no information." 1 They give us no information, simply because " no information " is possible. Critics are ready with the remark: " In this system which maintains that everything transcends explanation, unreasonableness is no objection." 2 It is true that no explanation is possible of the rise of the bewildering force of avidyā, creator of false values, which has somehow come into phenomenal being in spite of the eternal and inalienable purity of the original self-existent Brahman.³

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³ The authors of Saṃkṣepaśārīraka, Vivaraṇa, Vedāntamuktāvali, Advaitasiddhi and Advaitadīpikā hold that avidyā has Brahman for its basis (āśraya) and object (viṣaya), even as darkness is in the house which it conceals. Vācaspati thinks that avidyā has for its basis jīva and object Brahman. According to the latter view, even Īśvara is the product of jīvājñāna, and there must be as many Īśvaras as there are jīvas. There is besides the theory of mutual dependence; the jīva depends on avidyā and avidyā on jīva. So it is said that avidyā has its locus in Brahman, which is not opposed to avidyā. The author of Vidvanmanorañjanī discusses this question, especially in view of the Advaita doctrine, that in deep dreamless sleep the individual soul is merged in Brahman; and holds if avidyā admittedly exists, then it can only reside in Brahman. See Paṇḍit, September 1872. The śuddhacaitanya is not the contradictory of avidyā, but only vṛtticaitanya. As Vidyāraṇya puts it, through the modification of the inner organ, which assumes the form of Ātman, the avidyā in the Ātman is sublated.

Cites (7)