[Advaita-l] Eka jiva vada and nanajiva vada.

[vinayaka ns]

On Mon, Mar 18, 2013 at 5:47 PM, Srikanta Narayanaswami <
srikanta.narayanaswami at yahoo.com> wrote:

>
> 'eka eva sajIva-jIvaH, anye sarve nirjIva-jIvAH'-I want to know how far it
> is correct.Can we treat my jiva as "Eka jivah jivah-anye sarve nirjiva
> jivah in the vyavaharik plane?
>

To get the answer to this question one has to study the prasthAnatraya
bhAshya as a whole. In it there is a very clear demarcation between vyashTi
and samashTi. In fact, when it comes to nirIshwaravAda of the
pUrvamImAmsakas and the views buddhists who deny the external world,
bhAshyakArapAda takes lot of pains to disprove such assertions. For ex.
when mImAmsakAs say that the apUrva itself gives phala of the karma and no
sentient being is necessary for it, Shankara refutes it by saying unless
there is a "conscious entity" who knows the deeds of the jIvAs, they cannot
get the results of their karma. If we subscribe to the view of ekajIvavAda,
then ishwara becomes an imagination of that lone jIva and everything
happens just automatically.

Scriptures say that even plants have life and here is an assertion that the
people seen are the soulless bodies moving around. Is this not a step ahead
of idealist Buddhism who admit that there are multiple subjects at least?

BTW I would like to know where Shankara subscribes to this view. Pointers
are welcome.

-- 
Best Wishes,

Vinayaka