[Advaita-l] [advaitin] Shankara accepts BhAvarUpa ajnana BSB 4.1.15

Jaishankar Narayanan jai1971 at gmail.com
Wed Aug 30 09:45:55 EDT 2023


Namaste,

Even in Bhagavad Gita 4.37 bhashya Shankara accepts the continuation of
Prarabdha karma for jnAni

ज्ञानमेव अग्निः ज्ञानाग्निः सर्वकर्माणि भस्मसात् कुरुते तथा
निर्बीजीकरोतीत्यर्थः । न हि साक्षादेव ज्ञानाग्निः कर्माणि इन्धनवत्
भस्मीकर्तुं शक्नोति । तस्मात् सम्यग्दर्शनं सर्वकर्मणां निर्बीजत्वे कारणम्
इत्यभिप्रायः । सामर्थ्यात् येन कर्मणा शरीरम् आरब्धं तत् प्रवृत्तफलत्वात्
उपभोगेनैव क्षीयते । अतो यानि अप्रवृत्तफलानि ज्ञानोत्पत्तेः प्राक् कृतानि
ज्ञानसहभावीनि च अतीतानेकजन्मकृतानि च तान्येव सर्वाणि भस्मसात् कुरुते ॥

Knowledge itself being the fire, reduces to ashes all actions, that is it
renders them without cause, for the fire of Knowledge itself
cannot directly burn actions to ashes, like pieces of wood. So, the idea
implied is that full enlightenment is the cause of making all actions
causeless. From the force of the context it follows that, since the result
of actions owing to which the present body has been born has already become
effective, therefore it gets exhausted only through experiencing it. Hence,
Knowledge reduces to ashes only all those actions that were done (in
this life) prior to the rise of Knowledge and that have not become
effective, as also those performed along with (that is after the dawn of)
Knowledge, and those that were done in the many past lives.

with love and prayers,
Jaishankar


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