THE Doctrine of Maya - HolyBooks.com

OBJECTIONS WITHIN THE VEDANTA 127above this objection stands self-condemned. Whenwe do not believe in the real existence of Maya, whatlogic is there in requiring us to prove the existenceof it ? If we had granted its reality, then indeedwe could be called upon to name the source of itsknowledge perception, inference, revelation, etc.However, to prove the validity of our conception wedo not require any marshalled arguments or formalsyllogisms. It is as clear as anything, when werecall to our mind the nature of avidyd, which, as wehave shown after Sarikara, is an erroneous transferof the things and relations of the objective world tothe Self in the strictest sense of the word.Further, Ramanuja examines a few scripturalpassages, and giving them another interpretation,infers that all such passages can be so explained asnot to corroborate the theory of Avidya. He mightdraw any meaning out of the few passages he hasgone into, so long as he is bent upon showing theuntenableness of Maya, but there still remains alarge number of passages, among which the metaphysics of Yajfiavalkya occupies a prominent place,that defy all such attempts at a forced, far-fetchedand perverted interpretation.When we know that we are in reality no otherthan the Absolute Spirit, and that the Atman is theonly reality and; yet we feel that we are differentfrom the Absolute and that the world in which welive, move and have our being, is real, to what shallwe attribute this clash between our knowledge and