Avidya
Avidyā (IAST)Translation: "Ignorance"
A Concise Dictionary of Indian Philosophy
Sanskrit: अविद्या
Transliteration: Avidyā
Translation: "ignorance; nescience (from the verb root vid – “to know” + a – “not”)"
Definition:
- It is the key concept in the Advaita Vedānta system. It serves as the cornerstone for Advaita Vedānta metaphysics, epistemology, and ethical disciplines; thus, its role cannot be belittled. It is characterized by six marks: it is beginningless (Anādi); it is removed by right knowledge (Jñāna-Nivartya); it is a positive entity of the nature of an existent (Bhāvarūpa); it is indescribable (Anirvacanīya); it has the two powers of concealment and projection which respectively represent the truth and suggest the false (Āvaraṇa and Vikṣepa); and its locus is either in the individual self (Jīva) or in the Absolute (Brahman).
- One of the twelve links in the causal chain of existence (Pratītyasamutpāda). It is the root of all and the primary cause of existence according to Buddhism.
The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy
Avidyā, Sanskrit word meaning ‘ignorance’, ‘lack of wisdom’. Avidyā is a key concept in India’s philosophical systems, which attempted to explain the reasons for karmic bondage leading to suffering and release from such bondage through spiritual liberation. The general idea was that karmic fetters arise because of Avidyā, which is ignorance of the true nature of reality. When wisdom dispels Avidyā, the individual is freed from bondage. There was intense speculation in Indian philosophy regarding the nature and the metaphysical status of Avidyā. If Avidyā causes bondage that traps the individual in the transmigratory cycle of life and death (Saṃsāra), then where does Avidyā reside and how does it come into being?
Glossary to the Record of Yoga (Sri Aurobindo)
Avidyā — ignorance; the power by which “the Spirit dwells... in the consciousness of multiplicity and relativity”; “the knowledge of the Many” (Bahu), which “becomes no longer knowledge at all but ignorance, Avidyā” because it “takes the Many for the real fact of existence and views the One [Eka] only as a cosmic sum of the Many.”
The Science of Yoga (I.K. Taimni)
Commentary: "Part 2, Sūtra 5 defines Avidyā the root of the Kleśa. It is quite obvious that the word Avidyā is not used in its ordinary sense of ignorance or lack of knowledge, but in its highest philosophical sense. In order to grasp this meaning of the word, we have to recall the initial process whereby, according to the Yogic philosophy, consciousness, the Reality underlying manifestation becomes involved in matter. Consciousness and matter are separate and utterly different in their essential nature, but for reasons which will be discussed in the subsequent Sūtra they have to be brought together. How can Ātma, which is eternally free and self-sufficient, be made to assume the limitations which are involved in the association with matter? It is by depriving it of the knowledge or rather the awareness of its eternal and self-sufficient nature. This deprivation of knowledge of its true nature which involves it in the evolutionary cycle is brought about by a transcendent power inherent in the Ultimate Reality which is called Māyā or the Great Illusion.
Of course, this simple statement of a transcendent truth can give rise to innumerable philosophical questions such as ‘Why should it be necessary for the Ātma which is self-sufficient to be involved in matter?’ ‘How is it possible for the Ātma which is eternal to become involved in the limitations of Time and Space?’ There is no real answer to such ultimate questions although many answers, obviously absurd, have been suggested by different philosophers from time to time. According to those who have come face to face with Reality and know this secret, the only method by which this mystery can be unraveled is to know the Truth which underlies manifestation and which by its very nature is incommunicable.
As a result of the illusion in which consciousness gets involved, it begins to identify itself with the matter with which it becomes associated. This identification becomes increasingly fuller as consciousness descends further into matter until the turning point is reached and the upward climb in the opposite direction begins. The reverse process of evolution, in which consciousness gradually extricates itself, as it were, from matter results in an increasing realization of its Real nature and ends in complete Self-realization in Kaivalya. It is this fundamental privation of knowledge of its Real nature, which begins with the evolutionary cycle, is brought about by the power of Māyā, and ends with the attainment of Liberation in Kaivalya, which is called Avidyā.
The central idea to be grasped is that the Ātma, in its purity, is fully conscious of its Real nature. Progressive involution in matter deprives it of this Self-knowledge in increasing degree, and it is the privation of this knowledge which is called Avidyā. As the matter is one pertaining to the realities beyond the scope of the intellect, it is not possible to understand it through the medium of the intellect alone."
References:
- Grimes, John (1996). A Concise Dictionary of Indian Philosophy: Sanskrit Terms Defined in English. Albany: State University of New York Press
- Audi, Robert (1999). The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, Second Edition. New York: Cambridge University Press
- Hartz, Richard. Glossary to the Record of Yoga (Sri Aurobindo). Retrieved from http://wiki.auroville.org.in/wiki/Glossary_to_the_Record_of_Yoga
- Taimni, I. K. (1975). The Science of Yoga: The Yoga-Sūtras of Patañjali in Sanskrit with Transliteration in Roman, Translation in English and Commentary: Theosophical Publishing House. p. 129-131.
