Hypostasis (Reification) in the Pancapadika of Padmapada.

 

This beginningless Ignorance is referred to in the Vedas, Smrtis, Epics and Puranas as Name and Form, the Undeveloped, Ignorance, Maya, Nature (prakrti), Non-perception, the Unmanifest, Darkness (tamas), the Cause, Dissolution, Power, the Great Sleep (mahasupti), Sleep (nidra), the Indestructible, the Shining Ether.  In different places it is spoken of in many different ways.  It is spoken of as preventing the manifestation of Consciousness in its true form as the Absolute and then producing the appearance of the individual soul.  It is spoken of as the wall on which are painted the pictures of the impressions resulting from our meditations, rituals and acquired skills in previous lives.  It is spoken of as that which remains in dreamless sleep as the mere latent impression of its power of projection, concealing the light of Consciousness.  (P.P. pg.98 f./20 - version of Sri Swami Satchidanandendra Saraswati in his 'The Method of the Vedanta)

It is clear from that list of epithets that Padmapada the purported author of the Pancapadika holds to a view of Avidya (Ignorance) that is hypostatic (reifying).   He draws this conclusion based on the Vedic tenet that only Knowledge banishes Ignorance.   There is such a thing as Knowledge therefore there must be Ignorance as its polar opposite.  Sri S.S.S. demurs.  Ignorance is just the very action of superimposition (adhyasa) and not an occult force bringing Ignorance into existence.  He writes:

“The author of the Pancapadika does not use the word Ignorance to designate that phenomenon of superimposition or erroneous cognition, which is well known as being subject to correction and cancellation through knowledge.  Why instead of doing that, he applies the term Ignorance to the Undeveloped Principle, which belongs to the realm of knowable objects, is a mystery.”

To clarify, in my understanding of him, Sri S.S.S. is objecting to an unwarranted expansion of the term ‘ignorance’ to the metaphysical sphere. An analogical use has become a metaphor and treated as an existent entity.