Why Is Advaita Vadenta Sometimes Referred To As MAyAvAda?

Advaita Vadenta is sometimes referred to a Mayavada too. The word mAyAvAda serves many principles and purposes. Since the advaita upholds and regards the identity of the individual Atman to be the same with Brahman or the Supreme Being, therefore, a doubt naturally stems about the origin and creation of the multicolored, diverse and vibrant universe. The exterior or appearance of differences and dissimilarity in the universe is accredited and attributed to what is called the mAyA. In popular jargon, the word mAyA would mean an illusion, a fantasy or a chimera. And a magician or a conjurer is also called as a mAyAvI.

Within the advaita school of thought of the Vadenta, mAyA has a scientific implication as the imaginative power  or Sakti  of the Brahman, which serves to occlude too, because which the universe is supposed to be full of variation, and the unity of Brahman is not perceived or known. Some of the vaishNava schools also use the word mAyAvAda in a belittling sense. However, this criticism construes mAyA exclusively as an  illusion and censures the advaita for dismissing the whole world as an illusion that is nothing more significant than a dream. Such criticisms ignore the philosophical refinement of the thought of mAyA in the advaita.