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at a more skilled rereading of them, one which takes into account comparable terms and themes and parallel modes of operationconstituted as such in all the complex and ambiguous ways suggested abovewhile yet not reducing the two texts to a single text, or subordinating both to a perspective which would undercut the textuality of both. Like coordination, this reflective juxtaposition would be a largely practical experiment. Nor would it require complement by a completed theoretical position or extratextual knowledge about the truth or status of the compared texts. The knowledge that is gained would remain posttextual, emerging from the practice of comparing familiar texts without the encumbering desire, or ability, to reduce them to a single body of information. Yet precisely because there is no overarching frameworknot yet, at leastin which the compared texts could be accounted for, the studiously pragmatic strategy of coordination becomes all the more valuable.
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ii. Superimposition (adhyasa): The Superimposition of One Text on Another |
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Superimposition (adhyasa) is the act of imposing one realityidea, person, thing, wordon another, for the purpose of an enhanced meditation on the latter.13 In UMS III.3.9 and UMS IV.1.5 Sankara characterizes superimposition as a form of meditation in which the meditator deliberately imposes one reality upon another for the sake of an enhanced meditation: when, for instance, one imposes a mental image of the sun on one's eyes in order to meditate on the latter, or a mental image of Visnu on a small smooth stone. He identifies two necessary conditions for correct superimposition: a. one can fruitfully superimpose a higher reality on a lower (the sun on the eye, Visnu on the stone,) because the proximate, lesser reality and the act of meditation on it are thereby enhanced; to impose the lower on the higher would be pointless. (UMS IV.1.5) b. In the course of meditation, neither reality is forgotten, and one remains aware of the act of superimposition. (UMS III.3.9)14 A third attribute is implied: c. the superimposition is only temporary, for use in a particular meditation and for a set purpose; the meditator does |
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