Maya (religion)

Maya (ˈmɑːjə; Devanagari: माया, IAST: māyā), literally "illusion" or "magic", has multiple meanings in Indian philosophies depending on the context. In later Vedic texts, māyā connotes a "magic show, an illusion where things appear to be present but are not what they seem"; the principle which shows "attributeless Absolute" as having "attributes". Māyā also connotes that which "is constantly changing and thus is spiritually unreal" (in opposition to an unchanging Absolute, or Brahman), and therefore "conceals the true character of spiritual reality". In the Advaita Vedanta school of Hindu philosophy, māyā, "appearance", is "the powerful force that creates the cosmic illusion that the phenomenal world is real". In this nondualist school, māyā at the individual level appears as the lack of knowledge (avidyā) of the real Self, Atman-Brahman, mistakingly identifying with the body-mind complex and its entanglements. In Buddhist philosophy, māyā is one of twenty subsidiary unwholesome mental factors, responsible for deceit or concealment about the nature of things. Māyā is also an epithet, or a manifestation, of the Hindu goddess Lakshmi, the consort of Vishnu who is sometimes revered as a personification of the Absolute. Māyā was also the name of Gautama Buddha's mother. Māyā (Sanskrit: माया), a word with unclear etymology, probably comes from the root mā which means "to measure". According to Monier Williams, māyā meant "wisdom and extraordinary power" in an earlier older language, but from the Vedic period onwards, the word came to mean "illusion, unreality, deception, fraud, trick, sorcery, witchcraft and magic". However, P. D. Shastri states that the Monier Williams' list is a "loose definition, misleading generalization", and not accurate in interpreting ancient Vedic and medieval era Sanskrit texts; instead, he suggests a more accurate meaning of māyā is "appearance, not mere illusion". According to William Mahony, the root of the word may be man- or "to think", implying the role of imagination in the creation of the world.