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Indian Philosophy v2.c26.s24: XXXIII Māyā and Avidyā

Indian Philosophy v2.c26.s24

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XXXIII Māyā and Avidyā

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When we look at the problem from the objective side, we speak of māyā, and when from the subjective side, we speak of avidyā.² Even as Brahman and Ātman are one, so are māyā and avidyā one. The tendency of the human mind to see what is really one as if it were many, is avidyā; but this is common to all individuals. For when Śaṁkara speaks of avidyā, he means neither yours nor mine. It is an impersonal force which imparts itself to our individual consciousnesses, though it transcends them. For our knowing mechanism operates on things already created, which we perceive but do not make. The world is created by God in the order mentioned in the scriptures and noticed by us.³ Māyā is both subjective and objective, individual and universal, that out of which the conditioned forms of intelligence and of objective existence arise. If that by reason of which the unreal world presents itself as real is purely subjective, then it is mere fancy and cannot be seriously treated as the material cause of the world. If, on the other hand, it is regarded as the material cause of the world, something like the prakṛti of the Sāṃkhya, then it is not mere individual ignorance. The two, the avidyā of the individual and the prakṛti of the Brahman, arise together;

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neither of them is thinkable apart from the other, so that even avidyā is dependent on the ultimate reality.¹ The phenomenal self and the phenomenal world are mutually implicated facts.² Avidyā and prakṛti are co-eternal and belong to the world of experience.³ The space-time-cause world is the view of reality given to us through avidyā, which is adapted to the purpose of presenting us with such a world. Śaṃkara steers clear of mentalism as well as materialism. We cannot say that nature is a phenomenon of our consciousness, any more than the phenomenal self is a product of nature. The conditions of the possibility of objective experience are also the conditions of the possibility of logical selfhood or self-consciousness. Why do our minds work in this misleading way? Why is there avidyā? Why do we have the space-time-cause world? Why is there māyā? are different ways of stating the same insoluble problem. The Ātman, which is pure knowledge, somehow lapses into avidyā, just as Brahman, which is pure being, turns aside into the space-time-cause world. Through avidyā we reach vidyā, even as through the empirical world we reach Brahman. Why there is this universal and primeval turning aside or perversion, is more than we can say, yet we must hold that neither our logical minds nor the world which it apprehends is an illusion. A phenomenon is not a phantasm. Avidyā and māyā represent the subjective and the objective sides of the one fundamental fact of experience.

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It is called avidyā, since it is dissolvable by knowledge; but the objective series is called māyā, since it is coeternal with the supreme personality. Śaṁkara admits its existence even in the state of pralaya or destruction. Īśvara, the omniscient, who controls his māyā, has no avidyā, and if Śaṁkara here and there lends countenance to a different theory, it is in the figurative sense that Īśvara has the power which leads to avidyā in the individual. The Sāṁkhya thinkers did not admit the existence of an Īśvara, but the empirical world was traced to a primeval avidyā which is said to be beginningless. Avidyā is a quality of buddhi, and therefore must reside in buddhi, and logic requires that the beginningless nature of avidyā must be attributed to its locus in buddhi also. So buddhi becomes a manifestation of prakṛti, the fundamental object or root-substance. The objectivity of avidyā is thus safeguarded. Vivaraṇaprameyasaṁgraha says: "Avidyā no doubt constitutes a defect in consciousness in so far as it impedes the presentation of non-duality and gives rise to the presentation of duality; but, on the other hand, it constitutes an excellence since it forms the material cause, and thus renders possible the cognition of Brahman."¹ The finiteness is necessary before we can reach the infinite.

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² “We speak of māyā when we have in view its power of producing extraordinary effects and its being subject to the will of the agent; of avidyā, on the other hand, we speak when having in mind its obscuring power and its independence” (*Vivaraṇaprameyasaṁgraha*, i. 1; *Indian Thought*, vol. i, p. 280).

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³ Śrutidarśitena krameṇa parameśvareṇa sṛṣṭaṁ, ajñātasattāyuktam eva viśvaṁ tadtadviṣayapramāṇāvataraṇe tasya tasya dṛṣṭisiddhiḥ (*Siddhāntalesa*, ii).

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¹ Cp. Kant, also Bergson's view that the materiality of matter comes into existence with the intellectuality of our consciousness. Intellect and the world as it appears are born together and involve each other.

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² Cp. Viṣṇu Purāṇa: Avidyā pañcaparvaiṣā prādurbhūtā mahātmanaḥ i.5. 5).

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³ Advaitasiddhi, p. 595.

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¹ Indian Thought, vol. ii, p. 177. Cp. Īśā Up., where we are said to cross death by means of avidyā.

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While Śaṁkara uses avidyā and māyā indiscriminately,² later Advaitins draw a distinction between the two. While māyā is the upādhi of Īśvara, avidyā is the upādhi of the individual. According to Vidyāraṇya, the reflection of Brahman in māyā which is made of the pure sattva is Īśvara, while the reflection of Brahman in avidyā, in which rajas and tamas are also present, is the jīva or the individual.¹ Śaṃkara is of this view, since he says: " The highest Brahman becomes the lower Īśvara through association with a pure limitation, when one conceives of it."² The products of avidyā are also the powers of Īśvara. The world is the expression of the nature of God; it is also relative to the logical mind of man. The things of the world are said to be both ideas of the Divine mind and presentations of human knowledge. Īśvara is asserted to be the cause of the world,³ and yet the world belonging to the very self of Īśvara is also said to be fashioned by avidyā.⁴ Brahman and māyā are present in the universe and constitute the material cause of the world. The two are entwined together into one string as the real and the appearance based on it.

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² Colonel Jacob is against identifying māyā with avidyā. See Vedāntasāra, v. The world of plurality is the product of avidyā. The central forms of the finite mind, space, time and cause, are also the basis (ālambanam) of the phenomenal world. Avidyā is said to produce the māyā names and forms through which the empirical world is produced. Avidyāpratyupasthāpitanāmarūpamāyāveśavaśena (S.B., ii. 2. 2). It is sometimes said that mūlaprakṛti is māyā, while its effect of concealment (āvaraṇa) and projection (vikṣepa) are avidyā. Others are of opinion that mūlaprakṛti with pure sattva is māyā, while that qualified by impure sattva is avidyā. Vikṣepaśaktipradhāna-mūlaprakṛti, or the root substance dominated by the power of projection, is māyā, while āvaraṇaśaktipradhāna-mūlaprakṛti, or the root-substance dominated by the power of concealment, is avidyā. In some works on Advaita, avidyā is said to consist of the three qualities of sattva, rajas and tamas, and is said to constitute the upādhi of Īśvara. This view is not quite satisfactory. If Īśvara has the qualities of rajas and tamas, it is difficult to discriminate him from the jīva. Cp. Skanda Purāṇa, where avidyā is regarded as the limiting adjunct of jīva and māyā as the limiting adjunct of the Supreme viewed as Brahmā, Viṣṇu and Maheśvara. Avidyopādhiko jīvo na māyopādhikaḥ khalu Māyākāryaguṇacchannā brahmaviṣṇumaheśvarāḥ.

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¹ Pañcadaśī, . 16–17.

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² S.B., Chān. Up., iii. 14. 2. " Viśuddhopādhīsaṃbandhāt."

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³ i. I. 2.

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⁴ Cp. Avidyātmikā hi sā bījaśaktir avyaktaśabdanirdeśyā parameśvarāśrayā māyā (S.B., i. 4. 3). See also S.B., ii. 1. 14; i. 3. 19. Avidyayā māyayā.

Cites (6)