Vivartavada

A philosophical model used to explain
the relationship between the Ultimate
Reality or Realities and the perceivable
world; this model describes the world as
an illusory transformation of this reality.
The vivartavada model is unique to the
Advaita Vedanta philosophical school.
The Advaitins are proponents of a
causal model called satkaryavada,
which assumes that effects already exist
in their causes, and that when these
effects appear, they represent transformations (parinama) of those causes. The
classic example is the transformation of
milk to curds, butter, and clarified butter. According to asatkarya’s proponents,
each of these effects was already present
in the cause and emerges from it through
a natural transformation of that cause.
The Advaita school upholds a philosophical position known as monism,
which is the belief that a single Ultimate
Reality lies behind all things and that all
things are merely differing forms of that
reality. Advaita proponents exemplify this
belief in their claim that reality is nondual
(advaita)—that is, that all things are “actually” nothing but the formless, unqualified
Brahman, despite the appearance of difference and diversity in the world. The
Advaitins’ belief that an effect already
exists in its cause comes from the principle that all things in the universe ultimately depend on Brahman as a first cause. At
the same time the Advaitins are unwilling
to admit that Brahman ever undergoes
actual change because this would nullify
its eternal and unchanging nature. For this
reason, they speak of an illusory transformation (vivartavada). For the Advaitins,
Brahman never really changes, because it
is eternal and thus unchanging; the
apparent changes are only illusory, based
on human ignorance through changing
patterns of superimposition (adhyasa). In
this way the Advaitins can maintain the
transcendence of Brahman and at the
same time account for the (apparent)
changes in the phenomenal world.
This position is contested by proponents of another model, which describes
the perceivable world as an actual transformation of this single reality. This position is espoused by proponents of the
Samkhya, Vishishthadvaita Vedanta, and
Bhedabhada philosophical schools, who
like the Advaitins are also proponents of
satkaryavada. Each of these three schools
believes that the world as perceived is real,
that it has some single ultimate source
behind it, and that this first principle
undergoes a real transformation by which
the world comes into being. This parinama relationship allows these schools to
explain the phenomenal world but in a
way that compromises the transcendence
of these first principles by making them
part of the world. Philosophically, their
difficulties come in describing how the
transcendent can become mundane, and
then become transcendent again.