Adhyāropa-apavāda (Part 2)

ADHYĀROPĀPAVĀDA: REVISITING THE INTERPRETATIONS OF SVĀMI SACCIDĀNANDENDRA SARASVATĪ AND THE POST-ŚAṄKARĀDVAITINS (continued)
by Manjushree Hegde
(Read Part 1)

  1. Levels of Deliberated Attribution in the Prasthānatraya Texts

According to SSS, deliberated attribution occurs on three distinct levels in the texts of the prasthānatraya:16 words, sentences, and methodological procedures or prakriyās employed to articulate the inquiry.17 Each of these levels can be illustrated with examples. Consider the level of words. It is notable that most words themselves can be categorized as adhyāropas. Indeed, even a term as fundamental as ‘ātman’ is itself an adhyāropa. In the CUB 7.1.3, Śaṅkarācārya writes:

The term ‘ātman’ serves as a means of identifying it in contradistinction to the corporeal vehicle it inhabits. Moreover, the term is extended to convey the referent which persists after the repudiation of the body and other non-self entities as illusory. Finally, the word is used to reveal what is inexpressible by words.18

The term “ātman” is an adhyāropa; the aim of invoking the term is not its designation per se, but rather to draw attention to its distinctiveness from the nonself entities, to discriminate it from the nonself referents (body, mind, etc.). Loundo writes, “[Understanding it as an adhyāropa] prevents the reification of ātman and, concomitantly, of its negatum, in the process of distinguishing the former from the latter (body, etc.)” (Loundo 2015, p. 72). Similarly, the term “brahman,” derived from the verbal root “bṛḥ, expansion,” is an adhyāropa that seeks to invalidate the potential limitations associated with “ātman” (BUB 2.3.6). Most words of the prasthānatraya texts—including jīva, īśvara, jagat, avidyā, māyā, bandha, mokṣa, and so on—are adhyāropas.

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Q. 557 Detaching from the mind

A: This is a confusion of ‘levels’ of reality.

In reality, there is only Brahman. That is the ‘bottom line’ and nothing more can be said. (Even that is saying too much.)

But the empirical level – appearance of world and you in it – continues until death of the body-mind (i.e. when prārabdha karma expires). Your body-mind is inert (and mithyā), functioning only as a result of non-dual Consciousness ‘animating’ it. You are the Consciousness, not the body-mind.

But Consciousness itself does not do anything, does not know anything – there is nothing else! It is your inert mind, ‘animated by Consciousness’ that appreciates this. ‘Enlightenment’ is an event in the mind, when it realizes all of this to be true.

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Pratiyogin

In connection with my recent series of posts on the topic of whether ignorance is a separately existent entity or simply means ‘absence of knowledge’ (https://www.advaita-vision.org/ignorance-or-absence-of-knowledge/), I am posting the result of my further discussions with ChatGPT on the related topic of ‘pratiyogin’.

You may well never have heard the word before and my view is that this should not overly concern you! It probably means that you have never (attempted to) read anything written by Madhusūdana. The text for which he is probably best known is Advaita Siddhi, which I have mentioned in the Confusions books as being virtually incomprehensible. I recently purchased his commentary on the Bhagavad Gītā (called Gūḍhārtha Dīpikā) because he translates every word prior to his comments. And I was dismayed to find, as early as his commentary on 2.16, the opening:

The asat, unreal is that which is delimited by time (kāla), space (deśa) and matter (vastu); as for instance a pot, which is subject to origin and destruction, is delimited by the (two) times, the before and the after (of its period of existence), it (pot) being a counter-correlative of its antecedent nonexistence (prāgabhāva) and nonexistence after destruction (dhvaṃsābhāva). And so on…

At least Swami Gambhirananda has the grace to translate this translation:

That is to say, the pot does not exist before production and after destruction.

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Ignorance or Absence of Knowledge? – 7 (Final)

*** Go to Part 6 ***

The following question is concerned with the notion that ‘absence of a thing’ is an existent entity (another strange notion of post-Śaṅkara texts). This also formed an aspect of the discussions on the Advaitin List. It begins with my asking ChatGPT to translate the Devanagari text that formed part of the post by Sudhanshu on 6th Dec. 2024.

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Ignorance or Absence of Knowledge? – 6

*** Go to Part 5 ***

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Ignorance or Absence of Knowledge? – 5

*** Go to Part 4 ***

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Ignorance or Absence of Knowledge? – 4

*** Go to Part 3 ***

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Ignorance or Absence of Knowledge? – 3

*** Go to Part 2 ***

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Ignorance or Absence of Knowledge? – 2

*** Go to Part 1 ***

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Ignorance or Absence of Knowledge?

Part 1 – (This will be a multi-part post.)

This is a topic that I addressed extensively in the second ‘Confusions’ book – ‘Confusions in Advaita Vedanta: Ignorance and its Removal’ (due out by Summer 2025). But it has appeared in various guises over the past 2 or 3 months on the Advaitin List. One particular member – Sudhanshu Shekhar – has been particularly vociferous in espousing the view that they are not equivalent. He is extremely knowledgeable, especially regarding the text ‘Advaita Siddhi’, by the 16th-17th Century author Madhusūdana Sarasvatī, which strongly supports this idea. In ‘Confusions 2’, I strongly advise against looking at many of these post-Śaṅkara authors on the grounds that a) they are extremely difficult, often verging on incomprehensible; and b) their views, ostensibly to ‘clarify’ the views of Śaṅkara, mostly seem to do nothing of the kind, instead adding merely academic, intellectual arguments that confuse the issues.

Be that as it may, a recent post by Sudhanshu apparently stated the issues clearly so that the arguments could be examined. Unfortunately, the post contained lots of Sanskrit and was not immediately comprehensible to me, whose Sanskrit knowledge is largely limited to interpreting the Devanagari script (very slowly) and looking words up in the dictionary. Accordingly, I decided to put the text to AI (ChatGPT) for interpretation. A very interesting ‘discussion’ followed, which actually opened my mind to an aspect that had not previously occurred to me and that slightly mitigates my previous, hardline stance.

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