[Advaita-l] More on Paurusha

[Jaldhar H. Vyas]

On Fri, 1 Dec 2006, Ramesh Krishnamurthy wrote:

> Also, I am surprised by your statement that "karma largely relates to
> yaj~nas etc for Sri Sankara". If that is the case, there is no point
> in talking about karmaphala for any other action. I dont think that is
> the case at all. Rather karma refers to all actions, whether performed
> on the basis of shaastraic injunctions or otherwise. In fact your
> statement above is not internally consistent. If karma means only
> yaj~na-s for Sri Sankara, then saying that "karma does not lead to
> mukti" only implies that one should stop doing yaj~na-s. Why then the
> whole emphasis on renouncing the family & all possessions and taking
> up sannyAsa? All one needs to do is to stop doing yaj~na-s. Certainly,
> the framework of duties & actions prescribed by tradition & the
> shaastra-s extends to much more than just yaj~na-s. And this entire
> framework has to be renounced when one is ready for it.
>

Exactly.  Shankaracharya following the Mimamsakas stresses yajna because 
yajna is the archetype, the paradigm for karma.  For the purposes of 
philosophical reasoning, one particular form of karma is talked about but 
you are supposed to extrapolate from that to _all_ forms of karma.

-- 
Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>