The Seven Great Untenables: Sapta-vidhā Anupapatti

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Motilal Banarsidass Publ., 1990 - Philosophy - 130 pages
The polemics between the Advaitins and the Visistadvaitins appears unending. Each school`s exegesis claims to be the faithful explication of the true meaning of the Sruti. This volume provides an exposition of the key concept of avidya maya as set forth by advaitins and as criticized by Visistadvaitins. the philosophical conflicts do not seem to affect therir value as unique and valuable systems of thought.
 

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Page 60 - Where one sees nothing else, hears nothing else, understands nothing else, that is the Infinite. Where one sees something else, hears something else, understands something else, that is the finite. The Infinite is immortal, the finite is mortal.
Page 12 - Because when there is duality, as it were, then one smells something, one sees something, one hears something, one speaks something, one thinks something, one knows something. (But) when to the knower of Brahman everything has become the Self, then what should one smell and through what, what should one see and through what...
Page 80 - When Brahman is not known through valid cognition, that there is nescience is unintelligible; and more so, when it is known; there is no unsublated false cognition. He who is endowed with nescience cannot establish it; in consideration of the nature of reality it is established that there is no nescience.""5 "Therefore it is impossible...
Page 72 - Smrzti alike teach that everything participates in the nature of everything else. In the scriptural account of creation preceded by intention on the part of the Creator it is said that each of these elements was made tripartite ; and this tripartite constitution of all things is apprehended by Perception...
Page 52 - curiosity' somewhat trivializes that inward motive which has driven men. In the greater sense, in which it is here used, 'curiosity' means the craving of reason that the facts discriminated in experience be understood. It means the refusal to be satisfied with the bare welter of fact, or even with the bare habit of routine.
Page 10 - just as the notion of one's identity with the body is assumed to be valid knowledge, exactly so is this ordinary knowledge [of men, animal, tree, etc.], until the self is realized [that is, until the knowledge of Brahman is attained]'.
Page 51 - In order that superimposition may be possible, there must be (1) the residual impression brought about by the cognition of a real object, (2) defect in the object of knowledge, (3) defect in the cogniser, (4) defect in the instrument of valid knowledge, and (5) a knowledge of the general nature alone of the substrate without a knowledge of its particularities.
Page 100 - lie who lives in us as our ruler, who is one, and yet appears in many forms, in whom the hundred lights of heaven are one, in whom the Vedas are one, the priests one — he is the intellectual Self (manasina dtmd) in man...
Page 92 - ... non-existence of knowledge ; which hides the object of knowledge ; which is terminated by knowledge; and which exists in the same place as knowledge ; — because knowledge possesses the property of illumining things not illumined before ; — just as the light of a lamp lit in the dark illumines things. — Nor must you object to this inference on the ground that darkness is not a substance, but rather the mere absence of light, or else the absence of visual perception of form and colour, and...
Page 56 - ... illumination coming from an external agency — follow that the very nature of Brahman can be destroyed from the outside. This we have already remarked. — Further, your view implies on the one hand that this non-knowledge which is the cause of the concealment of Brahman's nature hides Brahman in so far as Brahman is conscious of it, and on the other hand that having hidden Brahman, it becomes the object of consciousness on the part of Brahman ; and this evidently constitutes a logical see-saw....

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