Māyā
Now we shall tell the way the twenty-four principles come to be. Resting on Brahman is māyā, whose nature is the three strands: sattva, rajas, and tamas.
Now we shall explain how the twenty-four principles (tattvas) come into being. Supported by Brahman is māyā, which is made of the three qualities (guṇas): sattva, rajas, and tamas.
- māyā
- guṇa
Where the schools meet, and where they part
The world is not self-standing. It rests on Brahman, the one reality, and does not exist apart from it or over against it; whatever the world is, it is held by and dependent on the Lord.
What the world comes from is woven of the three strands, sattva, rajas, and tamas; the material cause of all names and forms is this threefold matrix, and the inquiry into the Self must pass through an honest account of where the world stands.
Maya rests on Brahman and is made of the three gunas, and just there it shows its character: it is the beginningless, indeterminable power of avidya by which the one partless Brahman appears as the many. It is not a second reality, for it leans wholly on Brahman and dissolves the moment Brahman is known, as the snake vanishes when the rope is seen. Nor is it simply nothing, for the whole world streams from it. So the difference between Self and world is not finally to be held; it is real for the seeker and unreal for the knower, and liberation is the waking in which maya and its world are recognized as never having stood apart from the one.
Ramanuja's school will not read maya as a cosmic illusion to be dispelled. Prakriti, the threefold matter, is real, an eternal mode of Brahman and the real ground of the unfolding world; and maya, where the word is granted, names the Lord's real and wonderful creative power, not a screen of unreality. The world rests on Brahman as the body rests on the embodied Self, held inseparably (aprthak-siddhi) and ensouled by the inner controller (antaryamin); it is no superimposition but Brahman's own real effect. To call the world's difference unfit to be held would, on this reading, unmake the very reality the scriptures affirm, and with it devotion and the soul that loves.
For Madhva the world is real and the difference between Brahman, souls, and matter is eternal and never to be erased. Prakriti, the threefold material cause, is real though wholly dependent on Vishnu, who shapes it as the independent Lord working on what depends on him. Maya is his real creative power and his sovereign will, by which he fashions the cosmos and deludes the wicked; it is not a beginningless ignorance that veils a secret oneness. The fivefold difference is ontologically real, not a flaw to be dispelled, so the soul is forever distinct from the Lord on whom it leans; reading the world's difference as something not to be held would deny the very order Madhva takes the scriptures to teach.
Maya rests on Brahman and is woven of the three strands. Is this a beginningless power of unreality by which the one appears as many and which knowledge dissolves, or the Lord's real creative matter from which a real world is truly made? The words are shared; whether the world's difference is finally to be held, or finally to be undone, is not, and we keep it open.
The passage says maya rests on Brahman and is made of the three gunas. On Advaita's reading, why do these two marks together make maya neither a second reality nor simply nothing?
- Because maya is older than Brahman, and so cannot be measured against it at all
- Because resting on Brahman leaves maya no standing of its own, while being made of the gunas keeps it from being the partless Brahman, so it is indeterminable, real for the seeker and dissolved in knowledge
- Because the three gunas are themselves eternal and uncreated, equal in rank to Brahman
- Because maya is a fourth guna added to the other three and stands outside them
Show the answer
Where the world comes from
The teaching has just brought the student to rest in the Self as being, consciousness, and bliss. Now it turns, almost without pause, to the world, and before it lets a single element arise it names the source of everything that is about to come: maya, resting on Brahman, woven of the three strands, sattva, rajas, and tamas. Everything that follows, the five elements, the senses, the inner instrument, the gross body, the whole cosmos, will be drawn out of this one matrix. So the student is asked first to look at the matrix itself.
Two small phrases carry the weight. Maya rests on Brahman: it has nothing of its own to stand on, it leans wholly on the one reality, the way a mirage leans on the desert that is truly there. And maya is made of the three strands: it is the very stuff of quality and change, which the partless Brahman can never be. Held between these, it is neither Brahman nor a second thing set beside Brahman. Sankara's tradition gives it a careful name for just this: anirvacaniya, not to be fixed as real or unreal. Not real, because the moment Brahman is known it dissolves, as the snake dissolves when the rope is seen. Not unreal, because the whole world is seen to come from it. It is the beginningless power of avidya by which the one appears as the many, and to learn the world's origin here is, on this reading, to learn its unreality in the same breath. The difference between the Self and the world is finally not to be held.
Other keepers of the Vedanta hear these same words and will not read unreality into them. For Ramanuja's school the threefold matter is real, an eternal mode of Brahman, and the world rests on Brahman the way a body rests on the self that lives in it, held inseparably and ensouled from within; maya, where the word is allowed, is the Lord's real and wonderful power to create, not a veil to be lifted. To call the world's difference unfit to be held would, here, unmake the very reality the scriptures affirm, and the love the soul owes its Lord with it. For Madhva the world is more firmly real still: prakriti is real though wholly dependent on Vishnu, who works on it as the one independent Lord; maya is his sovereign creative will, and the difference between soul and Lord and matter is eternal, never a flaw to be dispelled. On this reading the world does not vanish in knowledge; it is known truly, and the soul abides forever distinct from the Brahman it leans upon.
So one passage, and two ways the world can stand. This is an Advaita primer, and it speaks the Advaita case plainly: maya leans on Brahman, dissolves in knowledge, and the difference is in the end not to be held. We let that case be heard at its full strength. And we let the other keepers answer in their own voice, that the matter is real, the Lord's power real, the difference real and never to be undone. The text names maya and moves on to the elements. Whether the world it is about to build is finally to be seen through, or finally to be honored as real, it does not here decide, and neither do we.
Whether maya is the beginningless unreality that knowledge dissolves, leaving the difference of Self and world unfit to be held, or the Lord's real power making a real and abiding world, the passage names the word and does not settle.
When you look at the world you live in, are you looking at something to be finally seen through, or something to be finally honored as real?
In the commentaries
The Self has been shown to be being, consciousness, and bliss. Now comes the world, and the source from which it rises: maya, resting on Brahman, woven of sattva, rajas, and tamas. The two words on maya carry the whole Advaita reading. Resting on Brahman means maya has no standing of its own; it leans wholly on the one reality, the way a mirage leans on the desert that is really there, and so it can never be a second thing set beside Brahman. Made of the three strands means maya is not Brahman, for Brahman is partless and beyond all quality, while maya is the very stuff of qualification, the seed of all that changes. Held between these, maya is called anirvacaniya, not to be fixed as real or as unreal: not real, for it dissolves in knowledge; not unreal, for the whole world is seen to come from it. It is the beginningless power of avidya by which the one appears as the many, and it is named here at the threshold of the cosmology so the student learns the world's origin and its unreality in a single breath, before a single element is allowed to arise.