[Advaita-l] [advaitin] Unambiguous statement of Akhandakara vritti in the Gita Bhashyam

[Venkatraghavan S]

Namaste Bhaskar ji,

Re

>  But in avagati / svarUpa paramArtha jnAna ,  Atma enshines or illumine
> the vrutti not vrutti itself  gets brahmAkAra or akhandAkAra to imply
> vrutti pervades the unlimited self.


I think there may be a misunderstanding. The later AchAryas are also not
claiming that the vRtti gets brahmAkAra or akhaNDAkAra to imply that the
vRtti pervades the unlimited self. On the other hand, what they say is that
the vRtti reveals that the self evident Atma *is* Brahman, i.e. it has
svarUpa abheda mAtra viShayatvam.

The consciousness that illuminates such a vRtti is brahmAvagati (avagati
paryantam jnAnam of BSB 1.1.1), which removes all avidyA, as the
bhAShyakAra says ब्रह्मावगतिर्हि पुरुषार्थः,
निःशेषसंसारबीजाविद्याद्यनर्थनिबर्हणात्. The commentators also say that. For
example, the ratnaprabhAkAra comments on the word avagati as
आवरणनिवृत्तिरूपाभिव्यक्तिमच्चैतन्यमवगतिः.

The term akhanDAkAra does not indicate that the AkAra of the thought is
akhaNDa, but to indicate that the vRtti reveals the svarUpa alone - by
saying that, what is meant is that apart from the self-effulgent Atma,
there is no anAtma revealed by the vRtti.

The sentence tattvamasi reveals that the self evident Atma is the Brahman
known from the Upanishads. Apart from that, the sentence has no other
object, ie no anAtma is an object. That identity also is not revealed as a
prakAra in the cognition, but as the Atma svarUpa itself, hence this is
also called niShprakAraka jnAna.

When this cognition arises, ignorance is destroyed, and all that remains is
pure consciousness, and in that pure consciousness, there is no difference
between jneya and jnAna. As Shankara says in the kArikAbhAShya for 3.33
ब्रह्म ज्ञेयं यस्य, स्वस्थं तदिदं ब्रह्म ज्ञेयम् औष्ण्यस्येवाग्निवदभिन्नम्
, तेन आत्मस्वरूपेण अजेन ज्ञानेन अजं ज्ञेयमात्मतत्त्वं स्वयमेव विबुध्यते
अवगच्छति ।

In this highest knowledge jnAnam is jneyAbhinnaM, this parAjnAna nishTata
> is not separate apart from brahman (kArika 3/33 has the relevance here) and
> in this vrutti loses its vrittitva, antaHkaraNa that which pervaded by this
> jnAna starts to appear just like true nature of the self.
>
>
>
> Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
> bhaskar
>

Kind regards,
Venkatraghavan

>