---
type: Concept
bundle: cosmology-creation
bundle_version: "0.7.2"
id: maya-cosmological
title: "Māyā (Cosmological) — माया"
iast: "Māyā"
devanagari: "माया"
description: "The cosmic creative power of Brahman by which the unmanifest absolute appears as the differentiated manifest cosmos; Mahāmāyā operating at the level of Brahman's own nature; distinct from Māyā as individual veil (avidyā), which operates at the level of the individual jīva's ignorance; v0.7 treats the cosmological Māyā (Mahāmāyā); upanishadic-core v0.5 treats the individual Māyā/avidyā dimension."
reception_note: "Present Mahamaya as the generative cosmological power this bundle documents (one of the corpus's four distinct maya-level treatments), not as 'the world is an illusion'; that flattening is the documented Schopenhauer chain (G8) addressed in the not: field and Error Genealogy."
darshana:
  - Advaita Vedānta
  - Śākta
  - Purāṇic
school_scope: "Advaita Vedānta: Māyā as Brahman's beginningless creative power; neither real nor unreal (anirvacanīya); Śākta: Mahāmāyā = the Goddess herself as cosmic creative force; Viśiṣṭādvaita rejects Advaita's Māyā doctrine; Dvaita rejects it entirely; Purāṇic: Māyā-Śakti as Viṣṇu's creative energy (Yogamāyā)"
text_source: "Māṇḍūkya Kārikā (Gauḍapāda) 1.2; Vivekacūḍāmaṇi 105-112; Devī Māhātmya 1.55-78 (Mahāmāyā); BhP 2.5.18"
tags: [cosmology, maya, mahAmaya, shakti, brahman, avyakta, advaita, shakta, puranic]
not:
  - term: "illusion / unreality (the world doesn't exist)"
    why: "Māyā is standardly translated as 'illusion' in popular discourse, implying the manifest world is unreal or nonexistent. This is incorrect at two levels: (1) In Advaita Vedānta, Māyā's status is anirvacanīya ('indescribable / neither real nor unreal') -- the world is not unreal (asat) but also not absolutely real (sat) in the same sense Brahman is. It has empirical reality (vyāvahārika sattā). (2) In Śākta tradition, Māyā = the Goddess herself = the ultimate creative reality. In neither framework is the world simply 'unreal.'"
    instead: "Translate as 'cosmic creative power' or 'the principle that makes the unmanifest appear as the manifest'; note the distinction from simple 'illusion.'"
  - term: "the same as individual avidyā (ignorance)"
    why: "Cross-bundle warning (upanishadic-core v0.5). Mahāmāyā operates at the level of Brahman's power and generates the cosmic Sṛṣṭi. Avidyā (individual ignorance) operates at the level of the jīva and generates the individual's experience of bondage. Mahāmāyā is Brahman's power; avidyā is the jīva's limitation. Conflating them inverts the direction: Mahāmāyā is projective (Brahman projects the cosmos); avidyā is obscuring (the jīva fails to see Brahman). They are not the same operation at different scales."
  - term: "deception / deliberate deception by God"
    why: "Māyā is not God deceiving creation. In Advaita, Māyā is Brahman's own beginningless power that generates the appearance of multiplicity; it does not imply ill intent. In Śākta cosmology, Māyā = the Goddess = the supreme creative reality -- she is not deceiving but manifesting. The 'deception' framing imports a moral category (intentional deception) into an ontological framework (the structure of appearance and reality)."
related:
  - /concepts/srishti.md
  - /concepts/avyakta.md
  - /concepts/shakti-cosmological.md
  - /concepts/ishvara-cosmological.md
  - /concepts/trigunas-cosmological.md
  - /concepts/iccha-jnana-kriya-shakti.md
  - /concepts/lila-cosmological.md
timestamp: "2026-07-01"
okf_version: "0.2"
license: "CC BY-SA 4.0"
---

# Māyā (Cosmological) -- माया

**Not:** the world is unreal, the same as avidyā, God's deception

## Two Levels of Māyā

The most important disambiguation in the entire Māyā complex:

**Mahāmāyā (Cosmological Māyā)**: Brahman's own creative power operating at the cosmic level; the principle by which the non-dual absolute appears as the differentiated cosmos; operates before any individual jīva exists; source of the entire Sṛṣṭi process. This is v0.7's subject.

**Avidyā / Individual Māyā**: The individual jīva's beginningless ignorance that prevents recognition of its identity with Brahman; operates at the individual level; the cause of saṃsāra for each jīva. This is v0.5 (upanishadic-core) territory.

The relationship: Mahāmāyā creates the conditions within which individual avidyā operates. But Mahāmāyā does not reduce to many individual avidyās, nor does individual avidyā cause the cosmic Sṛṣṭi. They are structurally related but ontologically distinct levels of the same principle.

## The Status of Māyā: Anirvacanīya

Advaita Vedānta's technical position: Māyā is anirvacanīya -- "indescribable," specifically "neither real (sat) nor unreal (asat)":

- Māyā cannot be said to be **real (sat)**: because if Māyā were ultimately real, it would be a second reality alongside Brahman, contradicting non-duality
- Māyā cannot be said to be **unreal (asat)**: because if Māyā were simply unreal (like a square circle), it could not produce the real effects of the manifest cosmos

The position "neither real nor unreal" is not a logical contradiction but an epistemological statement about the limits of binary categories. Just as a dream is neither real (it has no waking-state objects) nor simply unreal (it produces real effects: fear, pleasure, memories), Māyā / the cosmic dream is neither absolutely real nor simply unreal. Its resolution comes when Brahman-knowledge (jñāna) arises -- at which point Māyā's products are recognized as Brahman-in-appearance.

## Mahāmāyā in the Devī Māhātmya

The Devī Māhātmya (Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa 81-93) provides the Śākta cosmological treatment of Māyā as Mahāmāyā -- the Great Goddess herself:

"She is eternal; she is the world; she projects and she withdraws; by her the world is pervaded. In time of continued existence she maintains the world in the form of a woman, and at the time of dissolution she is [identified with] Mahā-Pralaya."

In this framework, Māyā is not Brahman's subordinate power but the supreme creative reality itself -- the Goddess whose triple form is Sṛṣṭi-Sthiti-Saṃhāra expressed as feminine principle. This is the Śākta alternative to the Trimūrti: not Brahmā-Viṣṇu-Śiva (male) but the one Devī in her three aspects.

## Yogamāyā: Māyā as Viṣṇu's Creative Agency

The Purāṇic Vaiṣṇava framework uses the term Yogamāyā for the creative power through which Viṣṇu generates and maintains the cosmos. Yogamāyā is Viṣṇu's own Śakti, by which he both creates the cosmos and causes beings within it to experience his veiling. In BG 7.25: "I am not manifest to all, veiled by Yogamāyā; this deluded world does not know me, the unborn, the imperishable."

The distinction Yogamāyā/Mahāmāyā/avidyā follows sectarian lines but the cosmological function -- the power by which the one appears as many -- is consistent across all readings.

## Audience Metaphor

Māyā (cosmological) is like the screen in a cinema. The screen itself is pure, white, undifferentiated (Brahman). The projector (Brahman's Śakti) casts the film (the manifest cosmos) onto the screen. What you see (the film) is neither simply real (the characters are not actually on the screen) nor simply unreal (you genuinely see images; the emotional effects are real). When the film ends, the screen reveals itself as it always was: pure, undifferentiated, unaffected by the dramas projected onto it. Avidyā (individual Māyā) is like forgetting you are watching a film -- becoming so absorbed in the story that the screen itself is forgotten. Mahāmāyā is the power of projection; avidyā is the forgetting.

## Citations

1. Vivekacūḍāmaṇi 105-112 (Śaṅkarācārya) -- Māyā as anirvacanīya; the neither-real-nor-unreal doctrine
2. Devī Māhātmya 1.55-78 (Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa) -- Mahāmāyā as the supreme Goddess; see references/markandeya-purana.md and references/devi-mahatmya.md
3. Bhāgavata Purāṇa 2.5.18 -- Māyā-Śakti as the productive power of Brahman; see references/bhagavata-purana.md
4. Bhagavad Gītā 7.25 -- Yogamāyā as Viṣṇu's veiling-and-creating power

## Error Genealogy

- Māyā-as-"illusion" (the world does not exist) was broadcast into Western philosophy by Schopenhauer's "veil of Maya" (*The World as Will and Representation*, 1818/1844) and completed by popular culture; the flattening erases the corpus's four distinct māyā-level treatments at once. See [G8 — Māyā = illusion](../../../GENEALOGIES.md) in the repository root for the full chain and sources.
