2023-06-22 12:07:35 by ambuda-bot

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xvii
 
Siddhanta-bindu to account for this difference is a problem to be
solved by the historjan of Adavaita Vedanta.
 
The difference between the pratibimba-vāda which says the
reflected image is real and the ābhasa-vāda which says it is unreal
appears to be more in the form rather than in the content of the
statement. For the pratibimba-vāda also holds that the attributes
of the reflection such as its location, its lateral inversion facing
a direction opposite to the one faced by the object are all false.
The only reality that could be predicated of it is what it receives
from the object. This does not contradict its being false,
because what is perceived as other than the original is nothing
but the aggregate of perceived attributes all of which are false.
 
Şri Şankara uses the word ābhāsa, appearance, to include
the pratibimba, reflection, also in his Upade şasahasri
(XVIII, 31-50). Also in the Brahma-Sutras (Ch. II, 3, 50)
and Şri Şankara's commentary thereon, ābhāsa includes the
pratibimba. In fact reflection is also an appearance, a parti-
cular form thereof. While the 'reflection' confines the meaning
to the specific form reflected, the more comprehensive word
'appearance' includes the diffusion of light through the reflecting
medium. But for this the medium itself could be perceived.
 
There are more than sixty references to cidabhāsa in the
Brhadaranyaka-Upanishad-Bhashya-Vartika of Sri Sureshvara,
who is considered the author of the abhāsavāda. But there is
nowhere a suggestion that this is meant to contradict or is offered
as an alternative to the pratibimba-vāda. It would appear only
that Şri Sureshwara preferred the more comprehensive expression
abhasa and that the authors of the Pancpädikā preferred the
more specific expression pratibimba.
 
Sri Madhusudana Sarasvathi has reconciled these vädas in
the words of Sri Sureshvarachrya:
 
Yatha yatha bhavet pumso vyutpattih pratyagātmani
sā saiva prakriyā jneyā sadhvī sā cānavasthitā ॥
 
By whichever method a person attains knowledge of the