What is the difference between shunyavada, mayavada and nirvisheshavada?

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Thank you. So, what is the difference between Shunyavad, Nirmisheshavad and Mayavad? Okay.
Firstly, let us look at two different categories, Shunyavad and Nirmisheshavad. Shunya literally means void, zero. Nirmishesha means qualities, which is actually a very technical philosophical term and I will come to that a little later, but let us focus first and let us keep the definition simple as qualities.
So, Shunyavad means the ultimate absolute truth is a void. Now, of course, Buddhist philosophy is also very complex, because what happens in the Buddhist theologians, Buddhist philosophers, they tried to establish their philosophy and they went into a lot of complexities. Now, the complexity often ends in coherence.
So, their idea of Shunya, they say Shunya is not non-existence. They say the Shunya is the existence beyond existence and non-existence. Now, what does that mean? They say you figure it out.
That is basically a huge amount of word juggling. But suffice it to say that they have the conception that we have to give up all desires. In that sense, we have to create a Shunya or a vacuum in our consciousness.
Now, after that what happens, there are different Buddhist philosophers who have different ideas about it. So, for example, Nirvana is like the extinguishing of a candle. Our consciousness is like a candle, the flame of a candle.
And when we extinguish a candle, the illumination goes off. So, like that our consciousness gets extinguished. But some Buddhist philosophers argue that actually even if the candle is extinguished, the energy that was there, the energy continues to exist.
So, like that they say consciousness continues to exist at some other level. But essentially, their focus is on that आशा ही परमं दुखम नैराश्य परमं सुखम. That desire is the cause of suffering.
Therefore, give up desire and you become free from suffering. So, their idea is that we should give up all desires. So, in a simplified sense, our Acharya has explained that Shunya means void.
And we just drain our consciousness of all desires and what remains? There is something else will emerge. But that is not the mainstream Buddhist understanding. So, Shunya is basically empty our consciousness of all substance.
Not only empty our consciousness of all substance, because for them, they have no conception of a soul as the locus of consciousness. As I said, Buddhists don’t have a conception of a soul as the locus or the source of consciousness. So, when you empty, all consciousness what remains? In other words, nothing remains.
So, in that sense, it is like a philosophy of nothingness. So, Shunya is basically the sort of, basically, we end our existence to end our suffering. But the ending of existence is not ending of physical existence by committing suicide.
It is the end of, they also understand that desires are what cause transmigration. So, when we end desires, then our transmigration ends and then our existence also ends. So, Shunya Vada is basically end of all existence in a simplified sense.
Now, Nirvishesha Vada is a term which is used to describe Advaita Vada. What Shankaracharya taught was technically called as Advaita Vada. Advaita is trueness.
Advaita is, there is no trueness. So, in English, it is translated as non-dualism. So, they accept that duality is there in our present reality.
As you are there, I am here. There is a teacher and there is a taught. But in conclusion, we go beyond duality to non-duality.
That is Advaita Vada. Now, how does this? So, if the absolute truth is ultimately Advaita, then where does the Dvaita come from? Where does the trueness come from? So, there have been multiple schools of thought following Shankaracharya. Because when Shankaracharya taught, at that time he taught Advaita Vada.
But subsequently, there were other Vaishnava philosophers who refuted Shankaracharya’s philosophy. Actually, there were also some Shaivite personalists also. They also refuted Shankaracharya.
But the point is Advaita Vada was refuted. So, subsequent generations of Advaitins, when they wanted to defend this Advaita Vada, they came up with two broad schools of thought. One is, they call it as Pratibimbavada and the other is Mayavada.
So, Pratibimbavada, so Advaita Vada has two branches. Pratibimbavada and Mayavada. Pratibimbavada is the idea that, just as there may be one moon in the sky, but we can see many moons in many puddles or in many pots filled with water.
And if the water in the puddles or the water in the pot shakes, then the moon’s reflection also gets distorted. So, like that there is only one absolute truth, there is one Brahman. But in the reflection, we see many different jivas who think that they are separate.
So, this is Pratibimbavada. But Pratibimbavada raises the question, you know, in what is the Pratibimbavada happening? You know, isn’t it? If Brahman is all that exists, ekam brahman tyanasti, there is only Brahman that exists, then there has to, if there is a reflection and even if there is a distorted reflection, there has to be some medium in which reflection is happening. So, Pratibimbavada is a little difficult to sustain.
So, the other school of thought which came up was called as Mayavada. Mayavada is the idea that the whole conception of two-ness is maya. The whole conception of duality is maya.
So, in the act of consciousness, there are three things. There is the subject of consciousness. So, for example, if I am looking at Digvijay Prabhu.
So, I am the subject of consciousness, that means I am observing. And there is a stream of consciousness which is going from me to him. And he is the object of my consciousness.
So, in any act of conscious perception, there is a subject of consciousness, there is a stream of consciousness and there is the object of consciousness. So, Mayavada holds that this entire thing, there is the whole idea of subject of consciousness and object of consciousness. Both are false.
So, all that exists in reality is simply the stream of consciousness. So, they say, Now, in principle, this is true. We also want to become absorbed like that.
We also want to become absorbed like that. But there is one thing that we forget that we are absorbed in something. But that does not mean our existence is dissolved.
We do exist, but we forget ourselves. That is the meaning of absorption. But absorption of being is not dissolution of being.
Absorption of being is not dissolution of being. In fact, even for absorption, there has to be a subject who will get absorbed. Without that, there cannot be absorption.
So, Mayavada holds that the whole concept of subject and object, both are illusion. So, that means the Bhakta is an illusion, Bhagwan is an illusion. It is only the stream of consciousness between the two that is the reality.
This is Mayavada. Now, Nirvisheshavada is a term which the Vaishnavacharyas have used to contrast the concept of vishaya and its absence in Advaitavada. So, vishesha is something similar to achintya.
Vishesha is a term which is used, as far as I remember, by Vyasatirtha. Vyasatirtha was one of the most prominent acharyas in the Madhya Sampradaya. He used it first to explain Madhava’s philosophy.
And Baldevidya Moshen used it for the first time in our Gaudiya Vaishnava Sampradaya in his Govinda Vashi commentary of the Vedanta Sutra. So, vishesha means, it is what is the relationship between an object and its quality. So, for example, fire burns.
Now, when I say fire burns, like what Prabhupada explains as dharma. Dharma is an inalienable characteristic of something. Something that makes that thing, that thing.
So, it is the burning capacity that makes fire into fire. So, now when we say fire burns. So, we cannot have a conception of fire without its burning property.
At the same time, fire and burning are two different things. If they are two entirely one thing, then we could just say fire or we could say burns. But it won’t make sense.
We say fire burns, then it makes proper sense. So, burning is a vishesha of fire. Burning is a quality of fire.
And the quality is in one sense one and another sense different. So, similarly, we had what Vaishnava says explains that Bhagavan is Satchitananda. At the same time, he has many qualities which are his vishesha.
And those qualities are one and different from him. They are his vishesha. But the Advaitins hold that the Absolute Truth, Brahman, is a non-differentiated, homogenous oneness.
So, their idea is the Absolute Truth does not have personality, the Absolute Truth does not have activities, the Absolute Truth does not have qualities, the Absolute Truth does not have relationships, the Absolute Truth is simply a non-differentiated oneness. So, that means their Absolute Truth does not have vishesha. That is the conception of these people.
So, in one sense, Advaitavada is the original name of the doctrine. Then within the Advaitavada, there are two branches. There is Pratimimbavada and Mayavada.
There are many others also, but others have not become so prominent. And among these two, the most prominent has been Mayavada. So, generally, the Vaishnavacharyas, while referring to it, the whole Advaitavada, they often refer to it as Mayavada itself.
And it is not just Vaishnavacharyas. Actually, Mayavadis, they themselves refer to themselves as Mayavadis also. So, and that is why the Advaitins, when they refer to themselves, they refer to the opposite of Maya is Tattva.
So, they call themselves as Tattvavadis. So, now, from the philosophical perspective of the Vaishnavas, which, where the Brahman has vishesh, so, then a name given for that same Advaitavada is Nirvisheshavada. So, Advaitavada and Nirvisheshavada are the same.
And Mayavada is a subdivision of Nirvisheshavada. So, Shunyavada is a different category entirely itself. Shunyavada is non-Vedic, whereas Advaitavada is a misunderstanding of the Vedantic teachings.
Is it clear? So, what is the difference between the