In plain words
Just as with the question 'How did creation arise?', a question commonly occurs to you as well: 'How did ignorance arise?' Long ago, in answer to this very question, Vasiṣṭha Maharṣi spoke thus to Rāmachandra: "O Rāma! Do not concern yourself with how this avidyā came to be; let only this concern arise: 'How can I rid myself of it?'" This teaching is not for Rāma alone; it is declared to the whole of humankind born in the world. The doubts and questions that arise in man arise, it is certain, for want of true knowledge of the matter — that is to say, they arise because of ignorance. Such ignorance has enveloped the jīvas; this is every single person's own experience. To say 'we do not know' is itself ignorance. Then why pursue the question further? Having grasped that we have ignorance, to give up the anxious concern of how we may be rid of the saṃsāras that came upon us through it, and of the birth, death, happiness and sorrow that rest on them, and instead to fret, 'How did ignorance come? Does it belong to Brahman, or to the jīva?' is only greater ignorance. Giving up this line of inquiry and instead searching for the means to rid oneself of ignorance is the better course, is it not! The matter called ignorance does not hold up under inquiry. Inquiry is the lamp of Jñāna; ignorance is darkness. Only for as long as the lamp is absent does ignorance's influence remain.