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Re: Siva as yogi?
In article <4dnr3k$rqd@babbage.ece.uc.edu>,
Vidyasankar Sundaresan <vidya@cco.caltech.edu> wrote:
>Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian <rbalasub@ecn.purdue.edu> wrote:
>>
>>No, I have to disagree here. The "knowledge is self valid" just means that
>>THE "knowledge" is apparent always, WITHOUT any other support. Thus, since the
>>only self-valid knowledge in all 3 states, viz, waking, dreaming and deep
>>sleep, is the feeling of "I", the un-differentiated, unbroken absorption in the
>>"I" alone is true knowledge.
>
>This is so, but there is more to the theory of "svata: pramANa, parata:
>apramANa". This view of knowledge applies to all kinds of knowledge, be it
>brahmajnAna or mithyAjnAna. This theory of knowledge is also used by pUrva
>mImAmsakas, who do not teach a non-dual doctrine. Note that "valid" does not
>mean "right" - at least in the original sense of the Sanskrit words. All kinds
>of jNana is svata: pramANa, but there can be mithyAjnAna (false knowledge) and
>samyag-jnAna (right knowledge).
I think it is the case that no scholar has spoken of Brahma-gnyaana or
gnyaana in the Paaramaarthika sense of Advaita, as being svataH pramaaNa.
The distinction of svataH and parataH is _only_ at the vyaavahaarika
level. Also, while knowledge of the universe, etc., is considered
mithya-gnyaana, it is not the case that all knowledge in the universe is
of like status within it --the statement "2+2=4" is a vyaavahaarika-satya,
and "2+2=3" is also a vyaavahaarika-satya, but the two are not of like
status. It is important to note this fact; many spurious criticisms of
Advaita stem from a failure to appreciate that Advaita does not hold that
vyaavaharika-satya=(atyanta)-asat.
>For example, in the case of the rajju-sarpa, the knowledge "this is a snake" is
>valid in itself, giving rise to the fear of the imagined snake. That the snake
>is entirely imaginary does not take away from the fact that for the imaginer,
>it is real enough, at least for the time being. When the correct knowledge
>"this is rope, not a snake" arises, this knowledge is also svata: pramANa, and
>it acts as the sublating knowledge that tells you that the previous cognition
>of snake was mithyA. However, so long as the snake is seen, it is self-valid
>(svata: pramANa), and the snake is invalidated only by the other knowledge that
>it is rope (parata: apramANa).
>
>This is quite standard, classical advaita explanation of truth and error. The
>error is not known to be error till the right knowledge is known. Once the
>right kowledge is known, the error is understood to have always been error,
>even when the error was imagined to be the truth.
Quite correct. However, the previous claim that the knowledge of the snake
imagined in the rope is also svataH pramaaNa, needs to be clarified.
The perception of the illusory snake is itself real -- even after the rope
is seen for what it really is, the fact that one really was subject to
such an illusion previously, is not altered. In this sense, _all_
experience, be it of real or illusory entities, is svataH pramaaNa, since
no experience is itself falsified by later experience. 'PramaaNa' is
defined by 'yathaartham pramaaNam' -- that which describes as-is, is a
pramaaNa; thus, a pramaaNa can be either exact knowledge, or the source of
such. Knowledge that is exact does not ever become otherwise at any later
time.
However, the perception of the snake being real does not prove that the
snake itself is real. The knowledge of the snake is apramaaNa. It is not
the case that one thinks: I saw a real snake there before, but I see an
illusory snake there now. One sees a 'snake', which one may consider real,
and later one sees only a rope, and says, I saw a rope as a snake. If the
snake were svataH pramaaNa, then it could never be falsified. Thus, while
the fact of the perception is svataH pramaaNa, the fact of the perceived
is not.
>In the final analysis, the svata: pramANa knowledge of brahman is the only
>knowlege that is not sublated by other knowledge. On the other hand, the
Upon reading the first sentence, the first question that would come to
mind is: why? How is this known?
The answer is that all branches of Vedanta (I don't know about the
bhedabheda schools, etc., but at least according to Ananda Tiirtha,
Raamaanuja and Shankara), there is no such thing as pariikshaa-anavasthaa
-- the infinite regress of questioning. If today's snake is tomorrow's
rope, then tomorrow's rope may well be something altogether different the
day after, and so on. Some Buddhist schools use this argument to say that
all knowledge is uncertain, for we cannot ever be sure that what we
consider a certain truth now will not be shown to be false, by later
experience. Thus, all experience is illusory.
To this, Vedanta gives a two-pronged answer:
1> The above argument, even if accepted without question, only shows that
all knowledge is _possibly_ uncertain, not that it is in fact so.
2> It ignores the fact that there is a substratum of one's self-experience
that underlies all other experience; this substratum is itself never
contradicted, and cannot be called illusory.
Furthermore, in pursuit of 1>, Vedanta declares that there is never an
instance where one finds an infinite regress of contradictions: to posit
such a one is to posit the never-seen. Thus, the premise of the argument
is never seen, and cannot even be considered plausible, much less likely.
This substratum, in fact, constitutes the paaramaarthika-satya of Advaita.
Regards,
Shrisha Rao
>S. Vidyasankar
