[Advaita-l] Paper on SSS

[Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian]

Thanks for the many thoughtful comments. A quick reply since I am on vacation.

The "I" indirectly signifies the self, as pointed out by Sureshvara,
and it may be useful to include that at least in the footnote. I will
do that when I get the chance to think about how to do that. In
advaitic writings typically I is the ego, and the saakShin is the
self.

Anandamaya-kosha is probably a good candidate to equate with the
knower-I, as it is brahma-puccham pratiShThA, as you point out. As far
as I know, shankara does not address this in any detail. He is more
interested in pointing out that there is a superimposition, for
obvious soteriological reasons. The guNas should come (logically)
after the primary superimposition, as they are the outcome of the
reverse superimposition, inner versus outer, leading to action and
samskaaras. The knower-I is sometimes characterized as tamas/sleep in
a predominantly epistemological context, or mR^ityu in a predominantly
ontological context. However, they are essentially the same. But the
tamas here refers to the fact that it is bare ignorance, and not to
the three-guNas. I shall try to gather some references for this and
include some material on this.

BTW, do you have any comments on section 3? I think that's the most
interesting part. I had the greatest difficulty writing that section.

Rama

On 4/19/07, prem d p <prem_d_p at yahoo.co.in> wrote:
> namaste...
>
>   dear list members,
>
>   i had yesterday posted a mail in reply to sri ramakrishna's post on the subject. my post contains a serious error which i deeply regret.
>
>   i had written:
>
>   When we consider the pancha-kOshas covering the Atma, we can see that the
>   vijnAnamayakOsha is the innermost and hence a good candidate for the first
>   adhyAsa. VijnAnamaya kOsha is the 'antakarana' consisting of budhi, ego,
>   manas-indriya.
>
>   i correct thus: anandamaya-kosha is the inner-most kosha as per vivekachudamani and taitiriya upanishad.
>
>   in this context i would like to request the learned list members to discuss the comparative status of the vijnanamaya kosha and anandamaya kosha as per scriptures with regard to their relative primacy and composition based on the tri-gunas.
>
>   pranam.
>
>   ...prem
>
>
>
>
>   P.S
>
>   my earlier post is reproduced fully below:
>
>
>   namaste…
>
>   dear sri rama,
>
>   Rama wrote:
>
>   I have taken the suggestion of Prem, and I have changed my
>   descriptions in the file from observer to "knower-I". I agree that
>   observer corresponds to saaxii and is misleading, when I merely meant
>   the ego or "knower-I". I have uploaded the new file along with some
>   typos fixed, pointed out by Praveen (in private email). Thanks much.
>
>   Sri Prem, please see if it makes better sense now.
>
>   Rama
>
> Prem:
>
>   I think it looks better now, but with the qualification that 'knower-I' is understood
>   to be worthy of the epithet 'knower' only after its adhyAsa on Atma. Thus any
>   description of the type 'observer', 'knower', 'seer', even if it is not exactly the
>   pure 'witness' status of Atma, cannot be used as a fundamental or first or
>   primary adhyAsa on Atma as they themselves are the result of a prior adhyAsa
>   on Atma.
>
>   It follows that if a first adhyAsa on Atma is necessary to be posited then it has
>   to be 'anAtma' in nature. The only anAtmic manifested entity that I can
>   conceive of is 'nAma-rUpa'. So when we say that the ego is the fundamental
>   adhyAsa on Atma, then we necessarily mean the mere nAma 'I'.
>
>   When we consider the pancha-kOshas covering the Atma, we can see that the
>   vijnAnamayakOsha is the innermost and hence a good candidate for the first
>   adhyAsa. VijnAnamaya kOsha is the 'antakarana' consisting of budhi, ego,
>   manas-indriya.
>
>   I would like to suggest that the paper also include a deliberation on the
>   kArana upadhi (mAya) which is a limiting adjunct to Brahman, along with the
>   current consideration of the mAya-kArya upAdhi which is the pancha-kOsha.
>
>   pranam.
>
>   …prem
>
>
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