History of the usage of the terms --"mImAMsa", "vedAnta" and "mAyAvAda"

[L.S.Cousins]

No doubt the Advaitavedaanta is fundamentally a kind of adaptive
response to Madhyamaka ideas. But it is less obvious that the term
maayaa itself is really derived from Buddhist sources.
>
>"[53] The word mAyA can be found in zvetAzvataropaniSad, IV.10,
>where it signifies a divine creative power and is more or less
>identified with prakRti, or nature, as the origin of the universe.
>Indeed, it was only in Buddhist zUnyavAda that the notion of mAyA
>was developed into a consistent doctrine of the illusiveness of
>the phenomenal world. One sees, for example, in Nagarjuna's
>Maadhyamika-kaarikaa, vii, 34, the following definition
>
>  Just like /illusive/ mAyA, just like a dream,
>     just like the city of the /heavnly musicians,/
>        the Gandharvas,
>  Just like a beginning is this state, it is called
>     the momentary, /changing flux/.
>  YathA mAyA yathA svapno gandharvanagaraM yathA/
>  yathotpAdas tathA sthAna.m tathA bhaGga udIritaH//
>
The last line should read tathotpAdas etc.

The reference here is to the abhidharma debates concerning
conditioned phenomena.

So translate:
The arising (of dharmas) has been referred to [in scripture] as like
a magical trick (maayaa), their (period of) presence as like a dream
and their breaking up is like a gandharva city.

Lance Cousins

OXFORD, UK

CURRENT EMAIL ADDRESSES:
L.S.Cousins at nessie.mcc.ac.uk or selwyn at dtn.ntl.com