[Advaita-l] FW: Avidya, Jnanis and SSS' views

[V Subrahmanian]

On Mon, May 3, 2010 at 1:56 AM, Vidyasankar Sundaresan
<svidyasankar at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>> Sri Vidyasankar ji, Pranam-s,
>>
>> I place Mandana in the post-Sankara period. Mandana’s treatment of Prarabdha
>> in his interpretation of the term with ‘Ksiprata’ in the light of Changodya
>> in my view completes the metaphysical scheme in a sense that it fills in the
>> soetiological process without giving scope to lacuna left over by Sankara.
>
> Actually, there is no lacuna left over by Sankara, but room for the infinite
> variety of prArabdha karma that is possible.
>
>> Your argument that the issue has an ‘uneasy relationship’ with time is not
>> very strong point here; for the very notion of Prarabdha is innately
>> conceived and tied to the concept of time relatively with Sancita and Agami
>
> The uneasy relationship with time does not have to do with time per se, but
> the suggested "quickness". To say that a jIvanmukta lives in a functioning
> body so long as the prArabdha karma phala bhoga lasts is not problematic
> at all, except to those who say that the jnAnI's body is imagined by ignorant
> onlookers. To say that this is "quick" (in all cases) puts an expectation of
> boundedness upon it, which is, in my opinion, unnecessary and so I term it
> an uneasy relationship with time.
>
>>  He also points out that the ‘ksaya’ of deha ‘immediately’ after Jnanotpatti
>> is regarded only as an apparent process of exhaustion and not the operation
>> of prarabdha phala in the sense of being functional. Thus Jivanmukti atmost
>
> Meaning? Could you provide an exact quote from brahmasiddhi here?
>
>> can be held figurative of Videha which in proper metaphysical assessment
>> speaks for Sadyomukti alone. The fact that none of the preSankaran Advaitins
>> have used the term ‘Jivanmukti’ and that Sankara himself makes no explicit
>> mention on the term ‘Jivanmukti’ nowhere in the prasthana traya bhasya
>
> It is the not the absence of the term that a scholar should talk about really,
> but about whether the concept is present or absent in the tradition and how
> it has been understood or misunderstood.

The Gita Bhashya on 4.19, 20, 21, 22, 5.13 etc. has some very
revealing inputs on the concept of  jivanmukti, the 'kaala' aspect,
his vyavahaara, etc.

The bhashya on Gita 13.23 too contains a detailed delineation of jivanmukti.

Om Tat Sat