Adhyasa as per Sri SSS
H S Chandramouli
Namaste Michael Ji,
I am continuing on a separate thread what you stated in another, deliberately in order not to disturb the thoughtflow in the other. You wrote
// For SSS avidyā is adhyāsa — a false cognition, the taking of one thing for another — neither a positive cosmic entity nor a mere absence of knowledge //.
I am responding since you are repeatedly mentioning about mananam. Not for raising any controversy.
In my understanding of Sri SSS, an important point has been missed out when he states ** avidyā is adhyāsa — a false cognition, the taking of one thing for another **. And that is ** the relationship of tAdAtmya between the two - * one thing for another **. This requirement has been completely ignored. In my understanding of Sri SSS, that is the consequence of dropping the definition by Sri Bhagavatpada of adhyAsa as ** स्मृतिरूपः परत्र पूर्वदृष्टावभासः । (smRRitirUpaH paratra pUrvadRRiShTAvabhAsaH | ) ** and preferring to use the other definition mentioned by Sri Bhagavatpada ** अध्यासो नाम अतस्मिंस्तद्बुद्धि (adhyAso nAma atasmiMstadbuddhi ) ** which retains only the ** परत्र (paratra) ** part from the first definition. Sri SSS himself has explained why he has dropped the other three terms from the first definition. In my understanding, this is the most fundamental deviation from the Bhashya leading to consequential differences. Since you mentioned mananam, I thought it may be useful to ponder over this issue.
I am not suggesting you should respond. You may just like to do some mananam on this. And if you feel there is any substance in it, please do advise.
Regards
Michael Chandra Cohen
SSS would not quarrel with most of what the document says. He would grant that the Laghucandrikā is coherent, that the traikālika-niṣedha-pratiyogitva definition is precise, that the fortress is well built. His whole objection lands on the one claim the document never actually argues — that the fortress is Śaṅkara's. Everything in it establishes the system's consistency with itself; the consistency with Śaṅkara is asserted, never demonstrated. So his reflections would run roughly:
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"Implicit in Śaṅkara, made explicit later" is the unproven premise doing all the work. The document says Śaṅkara "implicitly establishes avidyā as a third category." Where? SSS's standing demand is for the bhāṣya-locus, and it isn't supplied — because, as the philology confirms, Śaṅkara applies anirvacanīya to nāmarūpa (indeterminable as same-or-different from Brahman), not to avidyā, and never in the sat/asat sense the document needs. "Implicitly" is the word that lets the later apparatus be read backward into Śaṅkara's silence.
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The load-bearing pillar — avidyā as material cause — is precisely the mūlāvidyā he refuted. Every "consistency" argument in the document rests on it: avidyā can't be abhāva because "you cannot weave cloth out of the absence of threads," it has vikṣepa-śakti, it is the upādāna of the world. SSS's whole Mūlāvidyā-nirāsa is the denial of that premise. Śaṅkara's avidyā is adhyāsa — a false cognition — which weaves nothing and projects nothing; it is the confusion knowledge removes, not the thread the world is woven from. The "can't make a pot from absence of clay" argument is unanswerable only once you have already made avidyā the clay — which is the installation, smuggled in as a premise.
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"Functionally active without being ultimately real" is the graded being Gauḍapāda denies. The document grants avidyā vyāvahārika-satya, "functional reality," a third tier between sat and asat. For SSS — reading Śaṅkara through Gauḍapāda's ajātivāda — there is no such tier. There is the real (Brahman) and the false (the superimposed), and the false is not a lower floor of being; it is error, sublated without remainder. mithyā names sublatable appearance, not a positive intermediate substance with causal power. The document's quiet move from mithyā-as-falsity to avidyā-as-a-real-third-thing is exactly the reification he resisted.
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The equation that manufactures the whole "identity" — Sat ≡ Bhava, Asat ≡ Abhava — is the axis-collapse. This is your interlocutor's error in print. The document needs sadasadvilakṣaṇa and bhāvābhāvavilakṣaṇa to be synonyms, and gets there only by declaring sat = bhāva and asat = abhāva. Keep the axes apart and it falls open: Madhusūdana's avidyā is bhāva (positive) and sadasadvilakṣaṇa (neither real nor unreal) — which is why he says bhāvarūpa, not bhāvābhāva-vilakṣaṇa. The document itself wobbles here, calling avidyā "bhāvarūpa (positive)" in one breath and "different from Bhava" in the next, and patching it only by re-reading "Bhava" as "permanent/real entity," i.e. as sat. The slippage is the argument. (And worth flagging: that "Laghucandrikā defines avidyā as bhāvābhāvavilakṣaṇa" is itself doubtful — you noted Madhusūdana does not use the term; the AI may be supplying it.)
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That avidyā needs a "logical fortress" at all is the tell. The document celebrates Brahmānanda for building "an impenetrable logical fortress" with Navya-Nyāya machinery to survive cross-examination. SSS would read that as the symptom, not the triumph. Adhyāsa is sarva-loka-pratyakṣa, anubhava-siddha — evident to everyone, needing no pramāṇa and no formal defense of its ontological grade. A thing that must be defended by traikālika-niṣedha-pratiyogitva against the law of the excluded middle has already become a disputed ontological posit. The fortress exists because avidyā was made into something that requires one. Śaṅkara's adhyāsa never entered that arena.
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And underneath all of it, the method. On SSS's reading these formulations are adhyāropa — provisional attributions made to cancel a specific error, meant to be retracted by apavāda. The document treats them instead as doctrines to be fortified. That is the Hegde point exactly: the function has shifted from cancelling a wrong notion to explaining and defending the empirical order. The PSA fortified the scaffolding and called the result Śaṅkara.
His closing posture would be the one he held lifelong: he is not claiming the Advaitasiddhi tradition is incoherent or unintelligent — it is neither. He is claiming that coherence-and-defense is not the same as fidelity, and that the burden the document never discharges is to show the apparatus in Śaṅkara rather than read it back into him.
One honest note on the document itself, since you'll weigh it: it reaches "identical, perfectly consistent with Śaṅkara" by serial agreement — "Precisely! You've hit upon exactly…" — affirming each leading question rather than testing it against the bhāṣya. That is the genre of continuity-narrative SSS distrusted most: it feels like demonstration and is actually assent. The real question it skips is the only one he cared about — not "is the system valid?" but "is it Śaṅkara's?"
H S Chandramouli
Namaste Michael Ji,
Your response does not pertain to this thread. It does not touch upon the issue I have addressed here. I am not sure if you have gone through my post. Please check.
Even so, I am drawing your attention to what you have stated
// The document grants avidyā vyāvahārika-satya, "functional reality," a third tier between sat and asat. For SSS — reading Śaṅkara through Gauḍapāda's ajātivāda — there is no such tier. There is the real (Brahman) and the false (the superimposed), and the false is not a lower floor of being; it is error, sublated without remainder. mithyā names sublatable appearance, not a positive intermediate substance with causal power. The document's quiet move from mithyā-as-falsity to avidyā-as-a-real-third-thing is exactly the reification he resisted //.
This issue is addressed in my first post in this thread. In my understanding of Sri SSS, his conclusion is based on a mistaken choice for the definition of adhyAsa . The definition of adhyAsa intended by Sri Bhagavatpada clearly admits of a real-third-thing category. You may like to recheck my first post in this thread.
RegardsH S Chandramouli
H S Chandramouli
Namaste Michael Ji,
You
// SSS drops smṛtirūpaḥ and pūrvadṛṣṭāvabhāsaḥ from the essential definition only for the beginningless ātma–anātma adhyāsa, because those terms fit laukika/sādya adhyāsa such as rope-snake, shell-silver //
And
// As per Sugama, “The two adjectives, such as smṛtirūpaḥ and pūrvadṛṣṭāvabhāsaḥ are used here… to include the superimposition of the worldly instances, such as silver upon the sea-shell…” //,
// As per Sugama, “‘smṛtirūpaḥ pūrvadṛṣṭāvabhāsaḥ’ is only for clarifying the definition of adhyāsa having a beginning; it should not be forgotten that it does not enter into the body of the definition of the present adhyāsa.” //,
Me
I entirely agree. That is how Sri SSS characterizes in Sugama. But it is his declaration. Where does such a declaration leave Sri Bhagavatpada who does not make such a distinction while defining adhyAsa in the context of his opening statement . The definition is preceded by ** आह — कोऽयमध्यासो नामेति । (Aha — ko.ayamadhyAso nAmeti | ) **. What is this adhyAsa?. Sri SSS shifts the emphasis in this to read as ** What is this adhyAsa? ** and considers this as the general definition adhyAsa , and not as specifically addressing this adhyAsa. Sri SSS himself violates what he himself states above, namely ** definition of the present adhyāsa **. That not only defeats the intent of the definition, but also leaves Sri Bhagavatpada open to be shown up as being casual and irresponsible while defining such important terms. This is quite unacceptable. This is just my point. Every term used for the definition must be given full weightage considering the context in which it is defined. Curtailment as done in sugama is unacceptable.
You
// So there are two different senses of tādātmya:
- Real tādātmya-sambandha between ātman and anātman — SSS rejects this entirely.
- Falsely cognized tādātmya, as in “I am this body/mind” — SSS makes this central
Me
Why restrict it to only two. Why not three. Third one being
3. False (mithyA or AdhyAsika) tAdAtmya sambanda between Atman and anAtman.
This is exactly my point. I am not suggesting ** real tAdAtmya sambanda **. AdhyAsika only. The definition of adhyAsa given by Sri Bhagavatpada admits of such an interpretation. Just to pointout one reference from the bhAshya for such understanding, BSB 2-2-38 ** ब्रह्मवादिनः कथमिति चेत् , न; तस्य तादात्म्यलक्षणसम्बन्धोपपत्तेः । ** (brahmavAdinaH kathamiti chet , na; tasya tAdAtmyalakShaNasambandhopapatteH |).
You
// satyānṛte mithunīkṛtya, anyonyātmatā, and anyonya-dharma-adhyāsa—with the important proviso that this tādātmya is false appearance, not real relation //.
Me
Agreed. That holds good with three alternatives as well.
Regards
Namaste Chandramouli ji,
I prompted ChatGPT to survey Sugama for SSS's discussion on smrti-rupa. This is what it came up with.Sugama does not support the criticism that SSS ignores tādātmya. It shows almost the opposite: SSS explicitly foregrounds mutual identity—but he treats it as mithyā-tādātmya, not a real relation required between ātman and anātman.
The key distinction is this:
SSS drops smṛtirūpaḥ and pūrvadṛṣṭāvabhāsaḥ from the essential definition only for the beginningless ātma–anātma adhyāsa, because those terms fit laukika/sādya adhyāsa such as rope-snake, shell-silver. But he does not drop the idea that adhyāsa involves anyonyātmatā—mutual identification.
Sugama says very clearly that in Śaṅkara’s definition, the essence is:
“The essence of this definition is only this much – ‘appearance of a fact differently from what it is’ – is superimposition.”
“The two adjectives, such as smṛtirūpaḥ and pūrvadṛṣṭāvabhāsaḥ are used here… to include the superimposition of the worldly instances, such as silver upon the sea-shell…”And then Sugama states the more explicit conclusion:
“‘smṛtirūpaḥ pūrvadṛṣṭāvabhāsaḥ’ is only for clarifying the definition of adhyāsa having a beginning; it should not be forgotten that it does not enter into the body of the definition of the present adhyāsa.”
So the objection is right on one point: SSS deliberately restricts the role of smṛtirūpaḥ and pūrvadṛṣṭa. But it is not right that he thereby ignores tādātmya.
Sugama’s opening explanation of the Adhyāsa Bhāṣya says mankind proceeds by:
“super-imposing mutual identity and mutual transference of their properties”
anyonyasminn anyonyātmatām, anyonya-dharmāṃś ca adhyasyaAnd again, it explains the natural empirical procedure as:
“to mix up the real and the unreal owing to wrong knowledge… to super-impose the mutual identity and mutual transference of their properties, and to think ‘I am this’ and ‘This is mine.’”
That is precisely tādātmya-adhyāsa. Sugama is not reducing adhyāsa to bare “one thing appears elsewhere.” It retains anyonyātmatā and anyonya-dharma-adhyāsa as the structure of bondage.
Where SSS is careful is here: he denies that real tādātmya is needed. Sugama says:
“In mixing up the real and the unreal, neither the actual mixing of their mutual identity nor the actual transference of their properties is required.”
“Just as the superimposition of a snake on a rope… is possible merely due to non-discrimination… so also… the superimposition of the mutual identity of the self and the non-self is possible merely due to a want of discrimination.”So there are two different senses of tādātmya:
Real tādātmya-sambandha between ātman and anātman — SSS rejects this entirely.
Falsely cognized tādātmya, as in “I am this body/mind” — SSS makes this central.
This is why Sugama can accept the pūrvapakṣa’s point that ātman and anātman are utterly opposed, like light and darkness, and therefore cannot really exchange identities or properties; but SSS replies that adhyāsa is precisely a mithyājñāna, not something governed by logical possibility. Sugama says the impossibility objection is merely “logic removed from the fact” and “against experience,” because “nobody can deny the experience of super-imposition.”
So my correction to the earlier phrasing would be:
For SSS, avidyā is adhyāsa: the beginningless, natural, false identification of ātman and anātman, involving the apparent mutual identity and mutual transfer of properties between them. It is not a positive cosmic entity, nor a mere absence of knowledge; it is mithyājñāna rooted in itaretara-aviveka.
That is more precise than simply saying “taking one thing for another.” The phrase “taking one thing for another” is acceptable shorthand, but for SSS/Sugama it must be unpacked as satyānṛte mithunīkṛtya, anyonyātmatā, and anyonya-dharma-adhyāsa—with the important proviso that this tādātmya is false appearance, not real relation.
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