Part 4 - A Refutation of the definition of Avidyā (nescience)

Avidyā is defined as that beginningless positive entity which is removable by knowledge. The objection to this, as given by Vyāsa-tīrtha, is, first, that, the objects of the world being in time, the ignorance that limits the consciousness underlying it cannot be beginningless. Moreover, since according to the Vedāntist negation has no constituent material stuff as its material cause, ajñāna cannot be regarded as its cause. Even on the assumption of illusory negation ajñāna, which is regarded as being in its nature positive, cannot be regarded as its cause; for, if negation has for its cause a positive entity, then the unreal may have the real as its cause. Again, if ajñāna is not the cause of the negation, then knowledge ought not to be able to dispel it, and the negation of a jug should not be liable to cease on its negation. Again, on the Śaṅkarite view the ajñāna is supposed to veil the object; we cannot have any cognition of Brahman, because it is hidden by ajñāna. They also hold that the vṛtti knowledge cannot intuit Brahman. If that is so, then in the last emancipatory knowledge through vṛtti there is no intuition of Brahman; without this the ajñāna concealing Brahman cannot be removed, and hence emancipation is impossible. Again, if it is supposed that the ajñāna is removed, then in the jīvan-mukti state the saint ought to have no experience of worldly things.

Again, it must be admitted that knowledge removes ajñāna directly and spontaneously, without waiting for the assistance of any accessory cause; for otherwise, when a thing is known, its ignorance would not have vanished spontaneously with it. But, if that were so, then in cases where an ajñāna is associated with certain conditions, the removal of the ajñāna would not stand in need of the removal of the conditions also together with it. What is to be expected is that the ajñāna should be removed Irrespective of the removal of the conditions, and this is not admitted. Again, if it is held that the removal of the conditions is awaited, then pure consciousness cannot be regarded as capable of removing avidyā directly. Again, if knowledge can directly and spontaneously remove ajñāna, then it is useless to restrict the scope by saying that it removes only the beginningless ajñāna. The restriction is imposed in order to distinguish the cosmic avidyā from the phenomenal avidyā of silver-illusion, and if the spontaneous removal of ajñāna serves in both places, there is no utility in restricting the scope. It cannot be said that the epithet “beginningless” is given to ajñāna because it is the product of beginningless illusory imposition through defects; for it has already been pointed out that such a view would lead to a vicious infinite, because there can be no defect without avidyā. Again, ajñāna cannot be beginningless, because whatever is different from knowledge and also from negation cannot be beginningless like the illusory silver. Again, it is wrong to define ajñāna as positive; for on the Śaṅkarite view ajñāna is different from both positive and negative, and therefore cannot be negative. If an entity is not positive, it must be negative; for, being different from positive, it cannot also be different from negative. Again, if there is an entity which is not a negation and has no beginning, it is not capable of being negated, but has an unnegatived existence like the self.

The self also cannot be designated by any predicate explaining its positiveness, except that it is not negated. It has been pointed out in the Vivaraṇa that it is immaterial whether an entity is beginningless or has a beginning; for in either case it may be destructible, provided that there is sufficient cause for its destruction. The general inference that a beginningless positive entity cannot cease has its exception in the special case of ajñāna, which would cease to exist with the dawn of jñāna. If it is urged that, since ajñāna is both beginningless and different from negation, it ought to persist eternally, like the self, it may also be urged on the opposite side that, since ajñāna is different also from “positive,” it ought to be liable to destruction, like negation-precedent-to-production. To this the reply is that the inference is that no beginningless positive entity is confronted with anything which can oppose or destroy it. Any refutation of this argument must take the form of citing an instance where the concomitance fails, and not of any mere opposite assertion. No instance can be adduced to illustrate the assertion that the beginningless ajñāna can be removed by jñāna; for the removal of ignorance by knowledge is always with reference to such ignorance as has a beginning in time, as in the case of silver-illusion. So all that could be said would be that whatever opposes ignorance destroys it, and such a general statement has no special application to the case of the supposed beginningless ajñāna. Again, if ajñāna is regarded as different from positive entity, then it is like negation, and its cessation would mean position once more. Again, ajñāna (or ignorance) cannot have any existence apart from its perception, and, since ajñāna has always as its basis the pure consciousness, its perception can never be negative, so that it can never cease to exist^[1]. Moreover, if ajñāna is false in the sense that it is non-existent in the locus in which it appears, it cannot be destroyed by knowledge. No one thinks that the illusory silver is destroyed by the perception of the conch-shell.

The second alternative definition of ajñāna is that it is the material cause of illusion. But according to the Śaṅkarite theory that there are different ajñānas corresponding to the different jñānas, the knowledge of the conch-shell would remove ignorance of it, and the knowledge of a negation would remove ignorance of it; but in neither of these cases can ignorance be defined as a constituent of illusion. Negation, in itself, has no constituent material cause, and thus it cannot have ajñāna as a constituent.

There is a Śaṅkarite view that māyā is the material cause of the world and Brahman is its locus. On such a view, māyā or ajñāna being the material cause of the world, and illusion (bhrama) being a part of the World, ajñāna becomes a constituent cause of bhrama, and not vice versa. On the other view, that both Brahma and māyā are causes of the world-appearance, māyā cannot by itself become the cause of illusion. Moreover, an illusion, being itself different from a positive entity, is more like negation and cannot have any constituent material of its own, and so it cannot itself be the constituent material of ajñāna. Moreover, on the Śaṅkarite view, the illusory object, “having no being” (sad-vilakṣaṇatvena), has no constituent, and so the illusory cannot be a constituent of ajñāna. If anything is to be a constituent of anything, it must be positively existing, and not merely different from non-existents. Again, whenever anything is a material stuff of other things, the former appears as a constant factor of the latter; but neither the illusory silver nor its knowledge appears as ajñāna. Thus the two definitions of ajñāna fail.

In reply to this Madhusūdana says that the ajñāna which forms the stuff of the illusory silver is the beginningless ajñāna. The ajñāna is called positive in the sense that it is different from the negative. It is for this reason that the ajñāna which is regarded as the material stuff of the illusory negation can be regarded as different from negation, and therefore it can be regarded as constituent of the illusory negation. It is by no means true that the effect must be of exactly the same stuff as the cause. Things which are absolutely similar in nature or absolutely dissimilar cannot be related to each other as cause and effect; it is for this reason that truth cannot be the material stuff of untruth. For in that case, since truth never ceases to manifest itself, and never suffers change, untruth also would never cease to manifest itself. The truth, however, can behave as the cause of untruth in the sense that it remains as the basis of the illusory changes of the untruth. It is wrong also to suppose that, since the ajñāna of Brahman cannot be removed through a vṛtti, which itself is a manifestation of ajñāna, Brahma-knowledge itself becomes impossible; for, so far as Brahman is a content, this ajñāna (as content) can be removed by a vṛtti. In the case of jīvan-mukti, though the ultimate cessation may be delayed through absence of the obstructive factors of the right karmas of the past and other conditions, these may well be regarded as liable to cessation through knowledge. Certain causes may produce certain effects; but that such production may be delayed for some reason does not invalidate the causal character of the cause. It is well admitted by the Śaṅkarites that knowledge directly removes ajñāna, the removal being itself a part of ajñāna.

It is wrong to suppose that whatever is imaginary must necessarily be an idea due to defects or must have a temporal beginning; but it must be a product which is simultaneous with the imagination that produces it^[2].

It is also wrong to suppose that, if any entity is not positive, it must be negative or that, if it is not negative, it must be positive; for there is always scope for a third alternative, viz., that which is neither positive nor negative. According to the Śaṅkarites the principle of the excluded middle is a false premiss of logic, and thus they admit the possibility of an extra-logical category, that which is neither positive nor negative. The supposed inference that beginningless positive entity must necessarily be permanent, like the self, is false; for it is only in the case of self that beginningless positive entity is found eternally to persist.

It is also wrong to suppose that, since ajñāna is always manifested through pure consciousness, it can never cease to exist; for there is no law that whatever is manifested by the sākṣi-conscious-ness must remain during the whole period while the sākṣi persists; so there is no incongruity in supposing that the ajñāna ceases, while the sākṣi-consciousness persists. Moreover, the avidyā that becomes manifested is so only through the sōfoi-consciousness as modified or limited by it; such a limited consciousness may cease to exist with the cessation of the avidyā. It is also wrong to suppose that through the operation of the vṛtti the avidyā ceases to exist; for even in such cases it persists in its subtle causal form.

When avidyā is defined as being constituted of the stuff of illusion (bhramopādāna), what is meant is that it is changing and material. It is not necessary to suppose also that a cause and effect must necessarily be positive; for the self, which is a positive entity, is neither a cause nor an effect. What constitutes the defining characteristic of a material cause is that it is continuous with all its effects (anvayi-kāraṇatvam upādānatve tantram); and what is an effect must necessarily have a beginning in time. A negation-precedent-to-production of knowledge cannot be regarded as the material cause of illusion; for such negation can only produce the correlative positive entity with which it is connected. It cannot therefore be the cause of production of illusion; so there is no incongruity in supposing that ajñāna or illusion, neither of which is real, are related to each other as cause and effect. It is also not correct to contend that a material cause should always be found to persist as a perceivable continuous constituent of all its effects; the colour of the material cause of a jug is not found in the jug. The fact that, when the ajñāna is removed with the knowledge of the conch-shell, no illusion is experienced, is no proof that ajñāna is not a constituent of illusion. Not all things that are related as cause and effect are always experienced as such. Thus the definitions of ajñāna as anādi-bhāva-rūpatve sati jñāna-nivartyatvam or as bhramopādānatvam are valid.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

pratīti-mātra-śarīrasya ajñānasya yāvat sva-viṣaya-dhī-rūpa-sākṣi-sattvam anuvṛtti-niyamena nivṛtty-ayogāc ca.
      Nyāyāmṛta, p. 304.

[2]:

kalpitatva-mātraṃ ḥi na doṣa-janya-dhī-mātra-śarīratve sāditve vā tantram. kiṃtu prātibhāsa-kalpaka-samānakālīna-kalpakattvaṃ.
      Advaita-siddhi, p. 544.