maya
माया māyāThe creative power that brings forth the world of appearances; in Advaita, the cosmic illusion that veils the one reality (brahman).
Explained in depth in What is Maya? The World as AppearanceWhere this term appears
- What is Advaita Vedanta? Philosophy
Then there is the word that does the most work and causes the most trouble: maya.
- What is Kashmir Shaivism? Philosophy
Kashmir Shaivism is a non-dual Shaiva philosophy that arose in Kashmir around the ninth and tenth centuries CE. Its central claim is that there is only one reality,…
- Who Was Adi Shankara? Philosophy
…either flatly unreal nor finally real, but a real-seeming appearance, maya , true at the everyday level Shankara calls vyavaharika and dissolved at the absolute level, paramarthika .
- Anatomy of a Hindu Temple: Gopuram to Garbhagriha Temples
Varahamihira closes his chapter by tracing that craft to a divine source, the knowledge "stated by Vishvakarma to Maya", the architect of the gods teaching the architect of the demons.
- Devas and Asuras Deities
Where the tradition locates the more serious obstacle, it locates it inside, in avidya , ignorance of what one is, in the veiling work of maya , and in the inner enemies of desire, anger and greed.
- Hindu cosmology: the fourteen worlds and the ages of the universe Essentials
Hindu cosmology describes not one creation but a beginningless cycle. The universe is a brahmāṇḍa, a cosmic egg, breathed out and drawn back in across immense spans…
- Ishta-Devata: Choosing a Personal Deity Deities
Through nyasa , the ritual placing of mantras upon the parts of the body, the sadhaka builds the deity into himself limb by limb until, in the tradition's own language, he is devata-maya , made of the deity.
- Ishvara, Bhagavan and Brahman: How Hinduism Conceives God Essentials
Ishvara, the personal Lord, is Brahman viewed through maya, the creative power that makes the one appear as many.