[Advaita-l] Debunking Drishti-Srishti Vada and Eka Jiva Vada - part 1

V Subrahmanian v.subrahmanian at gmail.com
Sun Jul 23 22:04:36 EDT 2017


On Mon, Jul 24, 2017 at 2:03 AM, Durga Prasad Janaswamy <janaswami at gmail.com
> wrote:

> Hari Om,
>
> Namaste Venkatraghavan ji / V Subrahmanian ji,
>
> You were mentioning that DSV is helpful to you in negating
> parichinnatvam.  Please explain it in detail. I am very much interested.
>
> thanks and regards
> -- durga prasad
>

Dear Sri Durga Prasad ji,

The idea contained here is: the dṛśya is dependent on the dṛk. Shankara has
said in the BGB 2.16: whatever is grasped by the senses (a knower) is
unreal. The former is vyāpya and the latter is vyāpaka. The dependent
satyatva is seen in the case of dream. I am listing, as a sample, a few
sentences from the Mandukya bhashya, which you can easily reference by
going to the advaitasharada resource:

जाग्रद्दृश्यानां भावानां वैतथ्यमिति प्रतिज्ञा । दृश्यत्वादिति हेतुः ।
स्वप्नदृश्यभाववदिति दृष्टान्तः । यथा तत्र स्वप्ने दृश्यानां………

That which is experienced, seen, in the waking is mithyā, for the reason
that it is seen, just as dream-seen objects.

तत्र द्वैताभावस्तु वैतथ्यप्रकरणेन स्वप्नमायागन्धर्वनगरादिदृष्टान्तैर्
दृश्यत्वाद्यन्तवत्त्वादिहेतुभिस्तर्केण च प्रतिपादितः

Further examples are given here: dream, magician-performance, gandharva
nagara, etc. for dṛśyatva

तथा सर्वं चित्तदृश्यम् अवस्तुकं जागरितेऽपि चित्तदृश्यत्वादित्यर्थः ।

All that is an object of the mind is avastu, non-existent, even in the
waking, for the same reason.

तच्च जीवेक्षणात्मकं चित्तं द्रष्टुरव्यतिरिक्तं द्रष्टृदृश्यत्वात्
स्वप्नचित्तवत् ।

That which is an object for the jiva, which is the mind, since it is
non-existent apart from the jiva, the seer (that is dependent existence),
is akin to the dream-mind (which sees, etc. dream objects).

In all these sentences the common idea is: that which has a dependent
existence is finite. The source, the jiva, the consciousness, that is the
seer, is infinite. In fact the theme of the entire Vedanta and especially
brought out by the Mandukya, for example, is: the three states of waking,
etc., where alone samsāra, the world, bhoga, is experienced, is a viṣaya,
object, to the seer, the jiva-consciousness. So, the world, samsara, is
vyāpya, pervaded, and the seer, the jiva-consciousness, verily Brahman, is
the pervader.  The world is paricchinna and Brahman is aparicchinna,
ananta. Thus, the jiva who thinks he is paricchinna can realize that he is
aparicchinna for the dṛṣya is what is paricchinna and not he.

warm regards
subbu


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