Avidyā
Avidyā · a-vidyā, “ignorance”
Grammar: feminine noun; a (not) with vidyā (knowledge), from the root vid (to know): “not-knowing”.
Meaning: ignorance of the true nature of the ātmā; the beginningless cause by which the jīva, ever free, takes the body and the world for real and for himself, and is bound in saṃsāra. It is the first of the five kleśas, the afflictions of the mind.
In the scriptures: the Bhāgavata Purāṇa tells how avidyā came to be, what it does, and how it is destroyed.
Its creation. Maitreya tells Vidura that the sixth of the prākṛta sargas is avidyā, which causes in beings āvaraṇa, the veiling by which what is is not seen, and vikshepa, the projection by which what is not is seen; from it came tāmisra and the rest (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 3, Chapter 10). From the shadow, glossed as ajñāna, Brahmā first created avidyā with five divisions: tāmisra, andhatāmisra, tamas, moha and mahātamas (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 3, Chapter 20).
The five kleśas. Vidura asks Maitreya how Bhagavān Vishṇu, whose knowledge never lapses by place, time, state or any cause, can be joined to avidyā; and he calls himself ignorant, his eye of knowledge covered by beginningless avidyā, yet longing to know the līlās of Śrī Hari. In his answer Maitreya names the five kleśas of the citta, avidyā, asmitā (I-ness), rāga (attachment), dvesha (aversion) and abhiniveśa (clinging), and teaches that they are destroyed at the very moment the senses turn back from saṃsāra and merge in Śrī Hari (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 3, Chapter 7). Brahmā says that these five, with abhiniveśa glossed as fear of death, cannot overcome Bhagavān Vishṇu, who in pralaya holds all beings in his belly and takes yoga-nidrā on Ādiśesha to give them rest (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 3, Chapter 9). At Daksha‘s restored yajña, the members of the assembly praise Śrī Hari: on the road of saṃsāra the five impurities of the mind, avidyā, asmitā, rāga, dvesha and abhiniveśa, are the fortresses hard to pass (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 4, Chapter 7). When Dhruva fitted the Nārāyaṇāstra to his bow, the māyā of the yakshas vanished, as these five impurities of the citta are destroyed when ātma-jñāna arises (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 4, Chapter 11), and those who hear Dhruva’s account with śraddhā gain firm bhakti for Śrī Hari, by which the five kleśas fall away (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 4, Chapter 12). Sanatkumāra tells Pṛthu that the liṅga-śarīra, with its five marks avidyā, asmitā, rāga, dvesha and abhiniveśa, is the cause of the jīva’s bondage, and is burned by jñāna and vairāgya as a stick is burned by the fire born in it (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 4, Chapter 22). The consciousness that is Īśvara’s very nature is never broken by the impurities of avidyā and the rest, by karmas, their fruits or the bodies (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 10, Chapter 84).
How it binds. Brahmā tells Nārada that substance, time, action, avidyā or jīva, nothing truly exists apart from Vāsudeva; and that the jīva, though ever free, appears bound under the sway of avidyā, and the three guṇas tie him to body, senses and the buddhi proud of being the doer (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 2, Chapter 5). Through avidyā the jīva identifies with Prakṛti, thinks he is the doer of what the guṇas do, and fears Kāla (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 3, Chapter 26). The body, unreal, born of the three guṇas and made of the five elements, is gained by the jīva through avidyā, and with it he does karmas again (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 5, Chapter 10). Bhagavān Śiva, praising Saṅkarshaṇa, says: “Avidyā, made by you, binds the jīva by knots called karmas” (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 5, Chapter 17). Prahlāda says to Bhagavān Narasiṃha that describing his glory purifies one caught by beginningless avidyā in the pride of “I” and “mine” in this body of the three guṇas; beginningless avidyā has fashioned the wheel of saṃsāra with sixteen spokes, the ten indriyas, the five prāṇas and the mind, and fallen into it he is being crushed (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 7, Chapter 9). Śuka tells Parīkshit at the last that the mind creates bodies, objects and karmas for the ātmā; avidyā creates that mind; and saṃsāra comes to the jīva through avidyā (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 12, Chapter 5).
How it is destroyed. Nārada tells Vyāsa that with a still mind he realised that the gross and subtle bodies and the world of cause and effect are imagined through avidyā in himself, whose nature is Para-brahma (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 1, Chapter 5). Arjuna, remembering Śrī Kṛshṇa‘s teaching, attained brahmajñāna; as avidyā was destroyed, the sense of being doer and enjoyer fell away and he became beyond the guṇas. Dharmarāja merged the body into Prakṛti, Prakṛti into avidyā, the root of all superimposition, avidyā into the jīva, and the jīva into the imperishable Brahman (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 1, Chapter 15). The avidyā that causes saṃsāra is destroyed in the bhajana of Parameśvara (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 2, Chapter 2). Kapila teaches that for the sādhaka of bhakti and jñāna avidyā is slowly burned up in this very birth, as a stick of wood is burned by the fire within it (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 3, Chapter 27); for the jñānī the avidyā in the mind is gone, and he knows that the enjoyer of joy and sorrow was only ahaṅkāra (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 3, Chapter 28). Rantideva made Īśvara alone the support of his citta, and avidyā made of the three guṇas melted into his own nature like a dream (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 9, Chapter 21). Śrī Kṛshṇa, rising before dawn, meditated on the pratyagātmā, the second-less, imperishable Self, in which the faults of avidyā never exist (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 10, Chapter 70).
Other uses. The śāstra teaches two means, avidyā, glossed as karma, and vidyā, glossed as upāsana; by the first the jīva goes by the southern path to the fruits of karma, by the second by the northern path (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 2, Chapter 6). When Akrūra saw Śrī Hari beneath the waters of the Yamunā, Sampad, Pushṭi, Vāk, Kānti, Kīrti, Tushṭi, Bhūmi, Ūrjā, Vidyā, Avidyā, Cicchakti and Māyā-śakti served him in embodied form (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 10, Chapter 39).
Related terms: Vidyā · Ajñāna · Māyā · Kleśa · Asmitā · Saṃsāra · Ātma-jñāna
Sources
- Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 1, Chapters 5, 15; Skandha 2, Chapters 2, 5–6; Skandha 3, Chapters 7, 9–10, 20, 26–28; Skandha 4, Chapters 7, 11–12, 22; Skandha 5, Chapters 10, 17; Skandha 7, Chapter 9; Skandha 9, Chapter 21; Skandha 10, Chapters 39, 70, 84; Skandha 12, Chapter 5