Mandana Mishra (early 9th c.) Founder of the Bhamati school
of Advaita Vedanta, who is said to have lived about the same time as
Shankaracharya, the Advaita school's greatest figure.
The Advaita school adheres to the philosophical idea of
monism, which claims that all things are essentially different manifestations
of a single Ultimate Reality.
Despite the appearance of difference and variety, Advaita
proponents say that reality is non-dual (advaita)—all things are nothing but
the formless, unqualified Brahman (the greatest reality in the cosmos).
The assumption of variety, according to Advaitins, is a
fundamental mental misunderstanding of the ultimate essence of things, a
symptom of avidya.
Although sometimes translated as "ignorance,"
avidya is more accurately defined as a lack of actual insight that leads to
karmic bonding, reincarnation (samsara), and pain.
Mandana proposes the vivarta ("illu sory
manifestation") causal linkage to demonstrate how the unchanging Brahman
is linked to the seen universe.
Superimposition (adhyasa) is a notion that describes how
people project a faulty understanding onto the correct knowledge.
A piece of rope, for example, is mistaken for a snake.
Despite the fact that this judgment is incorrect, one is
genuinely observing something real, in this example the rope, but "superimuting" a false identity on it, therefore "transforming" it into
something it is not.
Human awareness, it is believed, starts with the existing
reality (Brahman), which is already there, but superimposes something that is
not (the judgment of a diverse world).
Mandana also disagreed with Shankaracharya on a number of
matters, which caused difficulties for his subsequent disciples.
One of these judgements was that the source of ignorance was
in the Self, since it was ludicrous to think of Brahman as ignorant; another
was that there were several Selves, because the liberation of one person did
not result in the liberation of others.
Mandana's remarks imply the presence of a common (though illusory) reality over which he felt compelled to pass judgment; he eventually dubbed it anirvachaniya—"that which cannot be named."
Mandana defined
two types of ignorance in his analysis: a primary "covering" that
prevents one from seeing the truth and a "projective" ignorance in
which humans intentionally conceal facts.
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