THE Doctrine of Maya - HolyBooks.com

"134 THE DOCTRINE OF MAYAthe Advaitist s doctrine of the identity of the two.The Jiva, they say, being limited (paricchinna) isdistinct from Brahman. One of the followers ofthis school of Madhva speaks of the Advaitins in thefollowing contemptuous and polemic fashionThere are certain disputants, sunk in a sea of falselogic, addicted to an evil way, filled with a hundred imaginations of idle babble, deceived themselves and deceivingthe world, who say, I am Brahman, and all this universealso is Brahman, which is now shown to be an empty desire.If I and all this Universe were Brahman, then there wouldbe an identity between thee and me ; thy wealth, sons andwife would be mine, and mine would be thine, for there wouldbe no distinction between*us."To show the futility of such argumentsit is sufficient only to state them as such. This criticism quiteignores Sankara s repeated warning that the idealunreality of the world does not deprive it of its empiricreality, and in empiric reality all the distinctions areobserved. The criticism is further couched in rathercrude language. We are not surprised that a misunderstanding of the Advaita standpoint may leadone to urge such silly charges againstit as are embodied in the quotation just noted.The school of Vallabha has not entered into conflict with the theory of Maya, but it has pointedout the untenableness of Ramanuja s standpoint.Ramanuja, as we have seen, only qualified the origi-1See Tattvamuktavall of Purnananda, trans, by Cowell(JRAS., vol. xv. part ii.), Sloka 87-88.