[Advaita-l] [advaitin] Avidya is Triguna in Paramartha Sara

[Raghav Kumar Dwivedula]

Hare Krishna Bhaskara Prabhuji

On Mon, 28 Apr 2025 at 3:52 PM, Bhaskar YR via Advaita-l <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

> praNAms Sri Jaishankar prabhuji
> Hare Krishna
>
> I recently started teaching the text Paramartha Sara which is authored by
> Adi Sesha according to our tradition. This text is supposed to predate Adi
> Shankara's commentaries.
>
>
> Ø     If this work is predated and proven by historians, would like to
> know whether bhAshyakAra anywhere quoted this in his PTB??
>
> The verse 47 (verse 49 in some books) in this text as given in the
> sanskrit documents site is as follows:
>
> त्रिगुणा चैतन्यात्मनि सर्वगतेऽवस्थितेऽखिलाधारे ।
> कुरुते सृष्टिमविद्या सर्वत्र स्पृश्यते तया नात्मा ॥ ४७॥
>
> triguṇā caitanyātmani sarvagate'vasthite'khilādhāre ।
> kurute sṛṣṭimavidyā sarvatra spṛśyate tayā nātmā ॥ 47॥
>
> Ignorance made of three constituents (sattva, rajas, tamas) ever produces
> the creation in the Consiousness-Self, which is all pervasive,  persistent,
> the basis / support for everything; This Self is not touched by that
> Ignorance.
>
>
> Ø     No doubt this verse originated due to treating avidyA and
> prakruti/mAyA one and the same.   triguNAtimika prakruti is the upAdAna for
> the bhautika stUla shareera and Ishwara is the dAta of this shareera as per
> our previous karma phala and avidyA is of three types i.e.
> agrahaNa(jnAnAbhAva), anyathAgrahaNa and saMshaya.  There is no guNa in
> avidyA as it is anyway anishta.  And yes the self is touched by neither
> ignorance nor mAya/triguNatmika prakruti.  But prakruti does not exist
> apart from self and avidyA is not there when we realize the true svarUpa of
> this mAyA / prakruti.  That prakruti / mAya is nothing but parabrahman.
>
> The commentator of this text Raghavananda says the below on how Ignorance
> is Triguna:
>
> Here Ignorance's power to veil the nature of Atma is Tamas, power to
> project the not self is Rajas and the power to illumine the not self is
> Sattva.
>
>
>   *   As bhAshyakAra clarified, avidyA  which is the absence of vidyA may
> be the reason for karma or prompts the jeeva to do karma. But the upAdAna
> for the Karma is only the triguNAtmika prakruti. For that matter avidyA as
> jnAnAbhAva  alone cannot lead to any inequality because it is all the same
> (since it is just the absence of vidyA). But when this avidyA mixed with
> faults like sattva, rajO tamO guNa-s of the jeevi


It does not seem logical to say an abhAva entity can “mix” with the three
guNas or any other bhAva entity.

If sugar-abhAva is added to tea, it does not make any difference at all to
the tea. At least not in my experience of preparing tea….

Om
Raghav



(for example rAga-dvesha etc. causing the desire to do Karma that leads to
> inequality na cha avidyA kevala vaishmyasya kAraNaM ekarUpatvAt.  When the
> jeeva due to jnAnAbhAva that absence of jnAna that he is guNAteeta /
> nirguNa brahman, thinks that he is sAtvika, rAjasika etc.




Hence Lord asks arjuna nishtraiguNyO bhavArjuna.  Here lord asking arjuna
> to realize his svarUpa and be situated in the self.
>
> Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
> bhaskar
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