What is "aropya"

Āropya ( Sanskrit: आरोप्य) variously means – to be placed or fixed in or on; to be planted; to be strung (as a bow); to be attributed, interposed, supplied, having made to ascend or mount; it also means – putting on, keeping, raising or lifting. Aropya is one of the four kinds of abharna (jewelry) which is put around the neck, wrist or waist. According to Sanskrit grammar, if a principal object is metaphorically figured or represented together with subordinates then it is Entire Metaphor that either dwells in all objects when all constituent metaphors (aropyas) are expressed or resides in a part when any is understood. In Sanskrit literature, Rudha Laksana gives the meaning which is derived from convention; in it is also seen the reflection of the popular figure of speech – Metonymy, in which the name of a particular thing is changed and given another name. In Gauni Saropa the projected object (aropyamana) and the subject on which such a projection is made are identified with each other. A metaphor consists of two parts or units – a) 'tenor' i.e. the thing to be discussed and b) 'vehicle' i.e. the thing to which an object is compared; the former is aropya or upameya and the latter, aropyamana or upamana.

According to Hindu philosophy, an illusion is due to similarity between the object which is the substratum ( adhisthana) of the illusion and the object which is erroneously ascribed (aropya) to the substratum, as in the case of the illusion of silver in a shell due to the similarity between the silver that is attributed to the shell and the shell which is the substratum the illusion. Illusory perception is the wrong perception of something as something else. In the context of the fact that no perception of silverness as synthetically connected with the substratum can arise without a sensory contact the Nyayas invested a special type of extraordinary sense-relation connecting the real silver and silverness with the visual sense which contact is the contact through cognition but which does not establish that the silver represented in the illusion is non-existent, it does exist elsewhere, even though this contention by itself does not provide any evidence that silver exists elsewhere. However, Madhavacharya concedes that the knowledge of the superimposed silver (aropitarajata) presupposes the knowledge of the unsuperimposed real silver (anaropitarajata) as superimposition is not possible without the reality of the substratum. Jayatirtha agrees that the illusionary experience itself is an evidence of the actual existence of silver figuring in the illusion elsewhere. Madhavacharya advocates the extension of the line drawn at identity (samsarga) up to the aropya (superimposed object) as such insisting on the reality of a Sadrsa (prototype) in addition to that of an adhisthana (substratum) as the sine qua non of all experiences.

Shankara explains that his suggested '' atman- anatman adhyasa '' i.e. superimposition of not-self upon the pure self and a beginingless perennial phenomenal experience, is the same as any other ordinary illusion as a thing appearing as other than itself and being mistaken as what it is not. In his illustration of the sky-illusion, the sky is directly given (not given in sense-contact), as the co-appearance of the aropaniya (locus) and the aropya (the superimposed) in the same knowing process. In his Vivekachudamani (Sloka 407), Shankara states:

अनन्यत्वमधिष्ठानादारोप्यस्य निरीक्षितम् | पण्डितै रज्जुसर्पादौ विकल्पो भ्रान्तिजीवनः || "The non-otherness of the superimposed from the substratum is seen by the learned; the sense of difference between the rope and the serpent etc., is on account of delusion."

in which context it is explained that the expression – तमोभिभूतः in the Kaivalyopanishad speaks of factual existence of tamas (darkness) but darkness does not actually exist, it is imagined.

The process of simultaneous penetration into the inmost and elevation towards the uppermost is initiated through the meditation of Om as a unit which elevates (aropya) the three-bodied universe into the sphere of yogic reality in which sphere the meditative ascension leads upto the highest, condition of the atman called '' Turiya '', the Fourth.