Avidyā is a Sanskrit word that can translate as ignorance, misconceptions, misunderstandings, or incorrect knowledge; it is the opposite of Vidya.
Avidyā, in all Dharmic systems, represents fundamental ignorance and misperception of the phenomenal world.
Etymology and meaning
Avidyā (अविद्या) is a Vedic Sanskrit word, and is a compound of "a" and "vidya", meaning "not vidya". The word vidya is derived from the Sanskrit root Vid, which means "to know, to perceive, to see, to understand". Therefore, avidya means to "not know, not perceive, not understand". The Vid*-related terms appears extensively in the Rigveda and other Vedas.
The word avidyā is derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *weid-, meaning "to see" or "to know". It is a cognate of Latin vidēre (which would turn to "video") and English "wit".
While Avidya found in Indian philosophies is translated as "ignorance", states Alex Wayman, this is a mistranslation because Avidya means more than ignorance. He suggests the term "unwisdom" to be a better rendition. The term includes not only ignorance out of darkness, but also obscuration, misconceptions, mistaking illusion to be reality or impermanent to be permanent or suffering to be bliss or non-self to be self (delusions). In Hinduism, Avidya includes confusing the mundane reality to be the only reality, and it as a permanent though it is ever changing.
In the Vedic texts and Upanishads
Avidya in the earliest Vedic texts is ignorance, and in later Vedic texts evolves to include anything that is a "positive hindrance" to spiritual or nonspiritual knowledge.
Isha Upanishad refers to vidya and avidya in verses 9-11:
Katha Upanishad uses the metaphor of blindness to describe avidya:
Mundaka Upanishad references avidya similar to the Katha Upanishad verse 2.5:
In Yoga Darsana
Avidya is described in the Yoga Sutras by Patanjali, as the first of the five kleshas, the knots of affliction, and the productive field of all them that follow. In Yoga Sutras II.5, Patanjali defines Avidya as confusing the nature of the soul with the body:
:अनित्याशुचिदुःखानात्मसु नित्यशुचिसुखात्मख्यातिरविद्या॥ ५॥
:
:Ignorance is the notion that takes the self, which is joyful, pure, and eternal, to be the nonself, which is painful, unclean, and temporary.
In Yogra Sutras II.2, Patanjali gives Kriya yoga as a method for overcoming Avidya and other klesas.
In Advaita Vedanta
The effect of avidya is to suppress the real nature of things and present something else in its place. In effect it is not different from Maya (pronounced Māyā) or illusion. Avidya relates to the individual Self (Ātman), while Maya is an adjunct of the cosmic Self (Brahman). In both cases it connotes the principle of differentiation of an experienced reality into the subject ('I') and an object, as is implicit in human thinking. Avidya stands for that delusion which breaks up the original unity (refer: nonduality) of what is real and presents it as subject and object and as doer and result of the deed. What keeps humanity captive in Samsara is this avidya. This ignorance, "the ignorance veiling our true self and the truth of the world", is not lack of erudition; it is ignorance about the nature of 'Being' (Sat). It is a limitation that is natural to human sensory or intellectual apparatus. This is responsible for all the misery of humanity. Advaita Vedanta holds that the eradication of it should be humanity's only goal and that will automatically mean realisation of the Self (Ātman).
Adi Shankara says in his Introduction to his commentary on the Brahma Sutras,
In the view of his later followers, avidya cannot be categorized either as 'absolutely existent' or as 'absolutely non-existent'.
See also
- Atma Shatakam
- Avidyā (Buddhism)
- Maya (illusion)
- Kleshas (Hinduism)
- Moh