A talk in Sanskrit on 'Darkness is material' (bhAvarUpa)

[V Subrahmanian]

तमसः द्रव्यत्वं - Haridas Bhat, Vakyartha

https://youtu.be/XxQDCFeg6Xs?si=okyTS2A403CzVqQy

The learned speaker says at the beginning:  All three schools of Vedanta agree upon this.  The Naiyayika does not; he has the view:  It is absence of light. 

warm regards

subbu

[Bhaskar YR]

तमसः द्रव्यत्वं - Haridas Bhat, Vakyartha

 

https://youtu.be/XxQDCFeg6Xs?si=okyTS2A403CzVqQy

 

The learned speaker says at the beginning:  All three schools of Vedanta agree upon this.  The Naiyayika does not; he has the view:  It is absence of light. 

 

Ø     I don’t think dravyatvaM of darkness unanimously accepted within the Advaita school.  By the way just curious to know what exactly the difference between dravyatvaM of the darkness in the room and dravyatvaM of the bench or table in the room or dark room??  Is this dravyatvaM of darkness is an epistemological concept or an ontological entity??  I am sorry not clear yet to attribute material existence to the prakAsha abhAva. 

 

Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!

bhaskar

 

[Sudhanshu Shekhar]

Namaste Subbu ji.

The learned speaker says at the beginning:  All three schools of Vedanta agree upon this.  The Naiyayika does not; he has the view:  It is absence of light. 

Indeed. The MAdhvAs too agree. They say - प्रकाशविनाश्यो अन्धकारः। न तु तेजोऽभावः। चक्रादिच्छेद्यत्वात्। ब्रह्मणा पीयमानत्वात्-आवरणत्वात्-स्वातंत्र्येण-उपलभ्यमानत्वाच्च।  

Advaita agrees on आवरणत्वात् and स्वातंत्र्येण-उपलभ्यमानत्वात्.

Bhaskar ji.

//By the way just curious to know what exactly the difference between dravyatvaM of the darkness in the room and dravyatvaM of the bench or table in the room or dark room?? //

There is panchIkaraNa for table/bench. No such panchIkaraNa for darkness.

// Is this dravyatvaM of darkness is an epistemological concept or an ontological entity??//

As much ontological as bench/table.

// I am sorry not clear yet to attribute material existence to the prakAsha abhAva.//

The bhAvarUpa-tva of darkness is proved by following anumAna:

तमः शब्द वाच्यो नाभावः, स्वमात्रवृत्तिधर्मप्रकारकप्रतियोगिज्ञानाजन्यप्रत्यक्षविषयत्वाद्, घटवत्।  

Either refute the anumAna, or accept! There is no third choice.

Regards.

Sudhanshu Shekhar.

[Michael Chandra Cohen]

SSSS points out "tamah prakashavad" ' is simply intended as an example to be understood in common parlance. It is a diversion of intention to discover controversial logical nuance in a drstanta. The merits of the argument is mere scholasticism   

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "advaitin" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to advaitin+u...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/advaitin/VI1PR06MB66386F5C21A0B1C608B9AE3B844B2%40VI1PR06MB6638.eurprd06.prod.outlook.com.

[V Subrahmanian]

In fact the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, in the Antaryami Brahmana lists tamas, darkness, as an entity in which Brahman resides and causes tamas's body mind organs complex to function:

Sureshwaracharya too agrees.

यस्तमसि तिष्ठंस्तमसोऽन्तरो यं तमो न वेद यस्य तमः शरीरं यस्तमोऽन्तरो यमयत्येष त आत्मान्तर्याम्यमृतः ॥ १३ ॥

warm regards

subbu

  

Regards.

Sudhanshu Shekhar.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "advaitin" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to advaitin+u...@googlegroups.com.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/advaitin/CAH9%3D%2BBBYZ9qqv4sLcFh2DJwwWernB84LTke%2BrZCk6JqUo3UDtA%40mail.gmail.com.

[Sudhanshu Shekhar]

Dear Michael ji.

SSSS points out "tamah prakashavad" ' is simply intended as an example to be understood in common parlance. It is a diversion of intention to discover controversial logical nuance in a drstanta. The merits of the argument is mere scholasticism.   

 

SSSS ji's statement is devoid of merit and logic. The intention of BhAshyakAra is to display mutual-anAtmatA of asmat-pratyaya-gochara and yushmat-pratyaya-gochara and for that he chose prakAsha and tamas, which indeed possess mutual anAtmatA.

I had earlier refuted whatever SSSS ji said on this topic in my post at https://tinyurl.com/m45jesps. I had received no response on this. 

Regards.

Sudhanshu Shekhar.

[Michael Chandra Cohen]

Namaste Sudhanshuji, pranam

How the text distinguishes between vishaya and vishayi is not as two substances but as real and unreal (satya anṛte mithunīkṛtya) which are opposed to each other epistemologically not ontologically. Who commonly takes darkness to be a thing? 

Regards

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "advaitin" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to advaitin+u...@googlegroups.com.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/advaitin/CAH9%3D%2BBDrD-VnXEWmw9K8x2udw9CTJ5nvh%3DFvvUaRQuyFgivj3A%40mail.gmail.com.

[Venkatraghavan S]

Namaste,

Absence and presence cannot be co-located. Where a thing is absent, it cannot be present and vice versa. Therefore, it follows that one cannot see the presence of an object in a location at the same time as seeing the absence of the object at the very same place.

However, darkness and light can be co-located and 'co-observed', like in the case of a partially dark / dimly lit room where the outlines of objects can be seen, but not their specifics. 

Now, human beings can see light frequencies in the visual spectrum, but not the ones outside the visual spectrum. I am not aware of any research that has conclusively established that that is the only visible spectrum for every species in the known universe. It is quite conceivable that there may be species out there that see light beyond the reach of the human eye. Therefore, what constitutes darkness (absence of light in your view) is different for different species. Cats and other nocturnal creatures have ability to see in the dark, that humans lack. Even humans do not see light and dark the same way - I may be able to see more in the dark than you can and vice versa.

That being the case, "the impossibility of mistaking light and the absence of light for one another" is only true for one individual of one species at one time - it turns out that it is not the universal example that the bhAShyakAra had in mind when he used the phrase tamahprakAshavat, if darkness and light are the absence and presence of light, respectively.

So the example of tamahprakAshavat in the adhyAsabhAShya cannot be taken to mean "taking the self to be the non-self and vice versa, should be an impossibility, like the absence and presence of light", because such a meaning (the impossibility of their co-location or knowledge of their co-location) does not universally apply in the case of the example itself (dark and light), let alone the exemplified (anAtma and Atma) - if Shankara had referred to the absence of light by the use of the word 'tamas'. 

Kind regards,

Venkatraghavan 

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/advaitin/CAAz9PvHg5qUOWoTjzGG4F1-AmnMmB65ezZ3vCnAwiHEvKs7%3DNw%40mail.gmail.com.

[Sudhanshu Shekhar]

Namaste Michael ji.

How the text distinguishes between vishaya and vishayi is not as two substances but as real and unreal (satya anṛte mithunīkṛtya) which are opposed to each other epistemologically not ontologically. Who commonly takes darkness to be a thing? 

I don't think the argument "who commonly takes darkness to be a thing" has any value whatsoever. 

Also, the whole idea of BhAshyakAra here is to merely posit two things which cannot have tAdAtmya. Two entities which have mutual-anAtmatA. Light and darkness are two entities which have such mutual-anAtmatA. 

Since they have mutual anAtmatA, if one is satya, the other has to necessarily be anrita.

Now, regarding the ontic status of anrita, there are different frameworks. One can choose. However, that is not the point in adhyAsa bhAshya. Here, AchArya seeks to explain the tAdAtmya of two things which have mutual anAtmatA. Light-darkness, AtmA-anAtmA are such entities. 

anAtmA is not AtmA-abhAva. Darkness is not prakAsha-abhAva.

Regards.

Sudhanshu Shekhar.