Ādi-līlā, Chapter 7
101
PURPORT
Māyāvādī philosophers are very proud of exhibiting their Vedānta knowledge through grammatical jugglery, but Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa in  Bhagavad-gītā  certifies that they are  māyayāpahṛta-jñānāḥ , bereft of real knowledge due to  māyā .  Māyā  has two potencies with which to execute her two functions— prakṣepātmikā-śakti , the power to throw the living entity in the ocean of material existence, and  āvaraṇātmikā-śakti , the power to cover the knowledge of the living entity. The function of the  āvaraṇātmikā-śakti  is explained in  Bhagavad-gītā  by the word  māyayāpahṛta-jñāna .
Why the  daivī-māyā  or illusory energy of Kṛṣṇa takes away the knowledge of the Māyāvādī philosophers is also explained in  Bhagavad-gītā  by the use of the words  āsuraṁ bhāvam āśritāḥ , which refer to a person who does not agree to the existence of the Lord. The Māyāvādīs who are not in agreement with the existence of the Lord can be classified in two groups, exemplified by the impersonalist Śaṅkarites of Vārāṇasī and the Buddhists of Saranātha. Both of them are Māyāvādīs, and Kṛṣṇa takes away their knowledge due to their atheistic philosophies. Neither of them agree to accept the existence of a personal God. The Buddhist philosophers clearly deny both the soul and God, and although the Śaṅkarites do not openly deny God, they say that the Absolute is  nirākāra , or formless. Thus both of them are  aviśuddha-buddhayaḥ , or imperfect and unclean in their knowledge and intelligence.
The most prominent Māyāvādī scholar, Sadānanda Yogīndra, has written a book called  Vedānta-sāra  in which he expounds the philosophy of Śaṅkarācārya, and all the followers of Śaṅkara's philosophy attribute great importance to his statements. In this  Vedānta-sāra  Sadānanda Yogīndra defines Brahman as  sac-cid-ānanda  combined with knowledge and without duality, and he defines ignorance ( jaḍa ) as knowledge distinct from that of  sat  and  asat . This is almost inconceivable, but it is a product of the three material qualities. Thus he considers anything other than pure knowledge to be material. The center of ignorance is considered to be sometimes all-pervading and sometimes individual. Thus according to his opinion both the all-pervading Viṣṇu and the individual living entities are products of ignorance.
In simple language, it is the opinion of Sadānanda Yogīndra that since everything is  nirākāra  (formless), the conception of Viṣṇu and the conception of the individual soul are both products of ignorance. He also explains that the  viśuddha-sattva  conception of the Vaiṣṇavas is nothing but  pradhāna , or the chief principle of creation. He maintains that when all-pervading knowledge is contaminated by the  viśuddha-sattva , which consists of a transformation of the quality of goodness, there arises the conception of the Supreme Personality of Godhead who is the omnipotent, omniscient supreme ruler, the Supersoul, the cause of all causes, the supreme  īśvara , etc. According to Sadānanda Yogīndra, because  īśvara , the Supreme Lord, is the reservoir of all ignorance, he may be called  sarva-jña  or omniscient, but one who denies the existence of the omnipotent Supreme Personality of Godhead is more than  īśvara , or the Lord. His conclusion, therefore, is that the Supreme Personality of Godhead ( īśvara ) is a transformation of material ignorance and that the living entity ( jīva ) is covered by ignorance. Thus he describes both collective and individual existence in darkness. According to Māyāvādī philosophers, the Vaiṣṇava conception of the Lord as the Supreme Personality of Godhead and of the  jīva  or individual soul