[Advaita-l] Why only jagat is mithya and jeeva is brahman !!??

H S Chandramouli hschandramouli at gmail.com
Thu Mar 31 02:43:22 CDT 2016


Sri Anand Ji,



Reg  << In the statement, "brahma satyaM jaganmithyA", what is being said
is basically "brahma satyaM mAyA mithyA", as the world has mAyA as its
material cause.>>



Most often it is not recognized that in the statement  “mAyA as its
material cause “, mAyA is the unmanifest (अव्यक्त avyakta) form of the
material cause while jagat is the manifest (व्यक्त vyakta) effect (कार्य
kArya). Since we are used to relating anything unknown to the known
(manifest), perhaps "brahma satyaM jaganmithyA" is more meaningful than
"brahma satyaM mAyA mithyA".



However it is very useful in understanding the applicability of the
wellknown Chandogya statement concerning the pot-clay relationship <<
वाचारम्भणं विकारो नामधेयं मृत्तिकेत्येव सत्यम् >> (vAcArambhaNaM vikAro
nAmadheyaM mRttiketyeva satyam ). This is an illustration for
pariNAmikAraNa. Here मृत्तिक (mRttika) refers to the unmanifest clay in the
pot-clay example. This statement can be extended upto << वाचारम्भणं विकारो
नामधेयं मायैव सत्यम् >> (vAcArambhaNaM vikAro nAmadheyaM mAyaiva satyam)
 to explain the pariNAmikAraNa  mAyA-jagat relationship. mAyA is the
ultimate pariNAmikAraNa for the jagat and is unmanifest while jagat is
manifest. This is the limit to which the Upanishadic statement quoted can
be stretched .



However it is very often stretched further and misunderstood to be
applicable to the Brahman-jagat relationship also by concluding  <<
वाचारम्भणं विकारो नामधेयं ब्रह्मैव सत्यम् >> (vAcArambhaNaM vikAro
nAmadheyaM brahmaiva satyam). This stretching is not permissible since mAyA
and Brahman relate to two different levels of Reality and mAyA is vivarta
in Brahman and not a pariNAma of Brahman. In fact I believe this is one of
the basic misconception regarding the Chandogya statement quoted above that
is responsible for the wrong notion about the relationship between Brahman
and jagat as far as Reality is concerned and is also quoted in support of
such wrong notion.



My 2-cents view.



Regards

On Thu, Mar 31, 2016 at 10:58 AM, Anand Hudli via Advaita-l <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

> Dear Shri Bhaskar,
>
> >Drum-beat of vedAnta in prakaraNa grantha says world is unreal whereas
> >bhAshyakAra in sUtra bhAshya says vedAnta maryAda is accepting that from
> the >parabrahman prANa etc. jagat would emerge :-) strange are the ways of
> Acharya >teaching !! :-)
>
> As far as I know, the vedAnta DiNDimA is attributed to NrisimhAshrama. In
> fact, there is a publication by Holenarsipur Adhyatma Prakasha Karyalaya on
> the same, dated 1936.
>
> There seems to be a lot of confusion about jagatkAraNa, which is easily
> resolved if we recognize that there are two kAraNas - vivartakAraNa and
> pariNAmikAraNa. Brahman is the vivartakAraNa of the world while mAyA is the
> pariNAmikAraNa. This I have explained before:
> http://www.advaita-vedanta.org/archives/advaita-l/2011-April/027072.html
>
> When jagat is said to be mithyA, it means the mAyA aspect of jagat is
> mithyA, since mAyA itself is mithyA. However, the Brahman aspect of jagat
> is satya. In the statement, "brahma satyaM jaganmithyA", what is being said
> is basically "brahma satyaM mAyA mithyA", as the world has mAyA as its
> material cause.
>
> Anand
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