[Advaita-l] kratu without IshvarapraNidhAna

[V Subrahmanian]

On Fri, Mar 23, 2012 at 3:01 AM, Vidyasankar Sundaresan <
svidyasankar at hotmail.com> wrote:

>
> However, in advaita vedAnta, one of the roles of ISvara in the vyavahAra
> of the world is as a universal causal agent behind every individual agent.
> I'm thinking of a brahmasUtra bhAshya passage where bhagavatpAda says that
> indeed while the jIva acts (karoti), ISvara causes the action (kArayati).
>

We have the above in the following BSB:

१६ परायत्ताधिकरणम्   । सू. ४१,४२



परात्तु तच्छ्रुतेः   । ब्रह्मसूत्र २,३.४१  ।


Shankara cites a shruti passage:


श्रुतिर्भवति 'एष ह्येव साधु कर्म कारयति तं यमेभ्यो लोकेभ्य उन्निनीयते   ।

एष ह्येवासाधु कर्म कारयति तं यमधो निनीषते' (कौषी. ३.८) इति   ।

The bhashya says: .....still it is ascertained from the Vedic texts that
Ishwara is the directing (ie. ultimate efficient) cause behind all
activities.  To this effect occurs the text: 'It is He who makes him do
good works whom He would raise above these worlds, and it is He who makes
him do evil works whom He would drag down' (Kaushitaki upanishad 3.8) as
also 'He who dwells in the sound and controls the soul from within' (Br.Up.
3.7.3-23) and other texts of this kind.


An objection on Ishwara's partiality is raised on the above shruti and is
answered in the next sutra:

नन्वेवमीश्वरस्य कारयितृत्वे सति वैषम्यनैर्घण्ये स्यातामकृताभ्यागमश्च
जीवस्येति   । नेत्युच्यते -

*कृतप्रयत्नापेक्षस्तु विहितप्रतिषिद्धावैयर्थ्यादिभ्यः   । ब्रह्मसूत्र २,३.४२
।*

Here in the bhashya occurs this sentence:


परायत्तेऽपि हि कर्तृत्वे *करोत्येव जीवः*   ।

कुर्वन्तं हि *तमीश्वरः कारयति**  * ।


[The Kaushitaki up. passage is cited by Shankara several times across the
BSB]


Regards,

subrahmanian.v



Accepting this at a philosophical level is quite different from the emotion
> laden perspective that most of us have on bhakti towards an ISvara, but
> from the advaitin's viewpoint, this is true bhakti. And for the advaitin,
> any
> mantra prayoga and its effects are also part of ISvara's causal role in
> the activity undertaken by any jIva. Or perhaps especially so, given the
> out of the ordinary claims regarding effects of mantra prayoga/upAsana.
>
> Regards,
> Vidyasankar
> ______________________________
>