[Advaita-l] RE: Advaita-l Digest, Vol 21, Issue 4

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

>But is not the very idea of the practice of dharma perceived
>differently in advaita VedAnta and pUrva mImAmsA? When one performs a
>Vedic ritual, the pUrva mImAmsaka would say that the ritual gives rise
>to some good result. But the advaita VedAntin would say that the ritual
>done without regard to result purifies the mind. The very idea of
>practise of dharma without regard to result is not even considered in
>pUrva mImAmsA. Maybe this is what is meant by advaita VedAnta being
>called a "modified pUrva mImAmsA" (i.e. emphasis on Vedic ritual
>resulting in chitta shuddhi instead of svarga) - the perception of the
>role of Karma in the darshana itself differs?

Yes, to most of the above. The pUrva mImAMsA attributes agency to the self, 
without going into what the nature of the self is. vedAnta goes into the 
latter question and at least in the advaita school, holds that the self is 
ultimately not an agent at all. However, advaita vedAnta accepts that since 
men usually consider themselves to be agents, Sruti prescribes both the 
course of correct karma and the course of withdrawal from karma.

What I meant by saying that when it comes to performing, we turn back to the 
pUrva mImAMsA, is that for the karma kANDa, we accept the mImAMsA decisions 
on such questions as which statement is a vidhi, what is the nature of the 
vidhi (apUrva, niyama etc), when the said karma is to be performed etc. 
However, precisely because the nature of karma and the self are seen so 
differently in the two darSana-s, it is not possible to consider one as a 
modified form of the other.

Regards,
Vidyasankar

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