Meaning

false
Not real, but made to look or appear real, deceiving.
duality
Two different things, emotions, thoughts, or beings.
illusion
Something that is not really what it seems to be.
fallacy
An idea that a lot of people think is true but is in fact false.

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Interpretation

“Mithyā,False, Duality, Illusion, Fallacy” (fallacy) means fallacy. Fallacy of what? Well, look 6 places behind, you find māyā or duality. Mithyā is the fallacy of duality. What is “duality”? How should we understand it? Well our perception of ourselves as individuals implies duality. Our perception of “others” as “the other” implies duality. The perception of a snake in a rope implies duality. The perception of a pot different from clay implies duality.

This is how a Vedantin would explain the concept of mithyā to his students.

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Story

We must understand as to how it is possible to equate the mere clay with the clay that has form,function and name. To understand this, we should now the relationship between a form, it’s function and the name we give to it. For example take a “pot” which is made from clay. Clay is therefore the material cause of the object which is the pot.

We recognise a thing as a pot, by It’s property of “pot”ness. When does this “pot”ness exist? Where does this “pot”ness exist? Can “pot”ness exist in things that are not “pots”?

Well, before the pot was produced from clay, there was no “pot”ness because there was no pot. Neither can “pot”ness exist in an object, which is not a pot.

Since the pot itself is not a substance (it being made out of “clay”), therefore “pot”ness cannot exist in the pot. This leaves the clay as the only substance that must contain “pot”ness.

But if we accept that “pot”ness exists in clay, then, wherever there is clay, there will have to be a pot. But this is not the case since clay exists in many distinguishable forms.

Then where can the “pot”ness exist? It exists only in clay but not intrinsically. Clay can be a pot incidentally. “Pot”ness is, therefore, an incidental attribute of clay, or an attributed (kalpita) quality of clay or a super-imposition (āropita) on clay. This incidental attribute is perceived to be present; but it has no substantiality of its own. So, its reality is mithyā. Thus, clay, which is the substantive satyam, has the incidental mithyā attribute of pot.It is in this context that clay is said to be the sub-stratum and pot as the super-imposition.The sub-stratum is satyam while the super-imposition is mithyā.

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On the gameboard

What does this mean to the player? Well, this essentially implies that her body is a form of Brahman, like that of all others around her. Her form and shape are incidental attributes by her birth (her family, parentage, her talents, her education, her nationality, etc.) and this is her “mithyā”.

The cell to her left abhimāna reveals the aspect of identity while the cell to the left kāma reveals the aspect of desire or longing, which are all essentially “mithyā”.

Gandharva loka directly above reveals that music has the capability to destroy this illusion as it resonates with the cosmic self. Six places ahead lies the home of the svadishthāna chakra on the yogic path. This reveals that she should control her desires,lusts, greediness and “sensory attractions” and be aware of this fallacy.

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