[Advaita-l] jeevo brahmaiva naparaH

Bhaskar YR bhaskar.yr at in.abb.com
Mon Mar 13 05:19:28 EDT 2017


Humble sAshtAnga praNAms Sri Vidya prabhuji
Hare Krishna

I have not seen any text that says jIva brahmaiva na paraH. The actual pAda of the verse, as found in the brahmajnAnAvalImAlA, a prakaraNa grantha, is as follows -

jIva brahmaiva nAparaH, (i.e. na aparaH).

>  yes, you are right prabhuji though jaganmithyatva is quite evident in prakaraNa like VC,  for brahma satya jagan mithyA jeevO brahmaiva nAparaH we have to look at vedAnta dindima only.  And shankara in his prashthAna traya bhAshya nowhere jointly mentions this as intended above...brahma is satya jeeva is nothing but brahman whereas jagat is mithyA.  


The presence of a-kAra, before the word para, calls for a very different manner of discussion about the meaning of this sentence. In essence, it teaches the equation of tvam-pada (jIva) with the tat-pada (brahma), which only happens along with the realization of the quality of mithyAtva of the jagat (vAcArambhaNaM nAmadheyaM, that prapanca is only the vyA-karaNa of the tattvAnyatvAbhyAm anirvacanIya avyAkRta nAmarUpa, etc).

>  when explaining the tat pada shankara,  as your goodself know, says etena sadAkhyena AtmanA Atmavat 'sarvamidaM' jagat, eshaH uktO aNimA aNubhAvO jagatO mUlaM ItadAtmyaM..So, IMHO, this tat pada denotes the jagat mUla and that which 'sarvaM idaM jagat'.  And elsewhere shankara further clarifies tat padena cha prakrutaM sat brahma Ekshitru 'jagatO janmAdi kAraNaM abhidheeyate etc.   Under this circumstances why jagan mithyA when sarvaM is brahman only and sarvatO mUlaM is 'tat' padArtha brahman??  And in continuation shankara while describing the meaning of tvaM pada elaborates : yena cha ;AtmanA Atmavat sarvamidaM jagat tadeva sadAkhyaM kAraNam satyaM paramArtha sat, ataH sa eva jagataH AtmA pratyak svarUpaM sa tattvaM yAthAtmyaM, Atmashabdasya nirupapadasya pratyagAtmani gavAdi shabdavat nirUdhatvAt, ataH tat tvaM asi...Here it is clear (atleast from my perspective) that that which is jagatO mUlAm that which has become sarvaM idaM jagat the same thing is the svarUpa of this tvaM..For both jeeva and jagat svarUpa is nothing but brahman only and when both are viewed independently then it is parichinna, aparipUrNa, abrahma but when the same has been viewed from its svarUpa drushti (upAdhi rahita paripUrNa drushti) both jeeva jagat are nothing but brahman only nothing else.  With this backdrop only mithyatva cannot be exclusively attributed to ONLY jagat when jeeva also talamalanAdi parikalpitaM.  

The vast amount of discussion that has taken place, assuming that the reading is "na paraH" is mostly misleading, with respect to what the verse is actually saying.

>  if your time permits kindly write more on arthAntara abhAsa-s when used  'na paraH instead of  na aparaH' in the context of this disucussion.   To my dull wit it is still unclear,  kindly bear with me prabhuji. 

sAshtAnga praNAms onceagain

Your humble servant
Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
bhaskar




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