[Advaita-l] akhandakara vritti, brahmakara vritti, atmakara vritti or ahamkara vritti

[Jaldhar H. Vyas]

On Thu, 16 Mar 2023, Michael Chandra Cohen via Advaita-l wrote:

> Blessed Forum members, Pranam.
>
> Can anyone provide the original text and description of this term with some
> detail on how it is supposed to work? I don't believe it is found in
> anywhere in Prasthana traya bhasya

Yes I don't believe it is explicated in the prasthana trayi itself but is 
a later development due to the absorption of Yoga into Advaita Vedanta. 
(Yoga is famously defined as chitta vrtti nirodhah)

Now, there is a vivarana on Patanjala Yoga ascribed to Shankaracharya. 
Even if one doesn't think it is genuine, our own Vidyashankar Sundaresan 
has ably demonstrated that Bhagavatpada was aware of the Yoga sutras and 
has quoted from them in the Prasthana trayi bhashyas.  So I do think the 
later acharyas have grounds for including it in a theory of Advaita 
Vedanta.

My understanding is this:

ahamakara chitta vrtti is the easy one.  It is just the normal mental 
state where one identifies with the mind and body.


If I were to say that Harry Potter killed Darth Vader you could 
confidently say that I am wrong even though neither Harry Potter nor Darth 
Vader actually exist.  But that incorrectness is a pratibhasika asatya. 
One still has to accept the validity of the Harry Potter and Star Wars 
"universes".  To refute the very idea of those universes and our 
supposedly "real" universe requires the ability to refute vyavaharika 
asatya and the mental state in which that is possible is akhandakara 
chitta vrtti.

One can treat the vyavaharika universe as satya and know that only the 
atman is real.  This is atmakara chitta vrtti. Classical Yoga goes no 
further than this.

However the Vedantin says even this atman is nothing else but Brahman. 
This the the Brahmakara vrtti.  For an Advaitin this is the same as 
atmakara vrtti.  After this the mind is deconstructed so there are no 
further vrttis.


I believe it is Swami Madhusudana Saraswati who has explained this in 
detail in Advaita Siddhi.

-- 
Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>