[Advaita-l] Sankhya & Yoga

[Sunil Bhattacharjya]

Dear Bhadraiahji,
 
1)
You said: 
 
Quote
 
The samkhya term prakRiti seems to be a kind of parallel to prajna. pra means beginning to or emerging. 

jna is knowledge, whereas kRt is related to work. So what is prajna for uttara mimimsakas may be prakRt 

for purva mimamsakas, this is just a speculation. 
 
Unquote
 
It is a strange argument. Prajna for the Uttaramimansakas of Brahman.
 
2)
You said
 
Quote
 
Purusha is usually a bit lower than prajna/prakRti, because purusha has defined limbs and originates vedas; 

but somehow Samkhya made purusha/prakRiti as a pair. Where in Shrutis do you see purusha and prakRti as pair? 

We need this to know where to draw a line between samkhya and Samkhya. Why is this mAyin same as 

purusha in later Samkhya?

Unquote
 
Another strange argument. Individual purusha is under the control of Prakriti. If Maya is Prakriti then  Mayin, call it Hara or even the Transcendental Purusha, is the master of Maya or Prakriti. Then tell me how can Mayin be the same as the Individual purusha, who is enamoured by Prakriti. No doubt Pradhana is the initial pre-involvement stage. As the clutch of Prakriti is no longer there on the released purusha the prakriti does not exist for that released purusha but the prakriti continues to remain very much there for the other enamoured purushas. 
 
Individual purusha sans involvement with Prakriti is the freed Purusha. Freed purush is a transitional state as we understand from Vedanta  that there is no multiplicity of purusha. The situation like this that in the ancient times all the shastras were taught from the lower level to the highest level and the disciples did not have confusion. The problem occurred later on when there came to existence the separate schools of Charvaka, Vaishashika, Nyaya, Sankhys, yoga, Purvamimansa and Uttaramimansa and there were competition where each school tried to prove their superiority by splitting hair and particularly taking advantage of the inadequacy of language in teaching such esoteric subjects. The guru-shishya interactions ceased to be. Today a schoolboy thinks that the atom is the smallest particle, a college boy thinks that electron, proton and neutrons are the fundamental subatomic particles and at the graduate level one talks about the ultimate
 particles and anti-particles, nuclear tansformations and such other topics. But higher the level of the students they can harmonise with the lower level of teaching but at lower level of teaching the higher knowledge simply cannot be appreciated. Looking at the darshanas holistically seems to have become a thing of the past.
 
We do not speak of a role of the Brahman but Hara has a role hence there is the terminological distinction though there is no real distinction. Because of my science background you may find my looking at things somewhat slightly unothodox at times and you may consult the other orthodox people. My maternal grandfather (my mother's uncle) Late Radhanath Phukan was great scholar of Sankhya and Vedanta and my initiation to Sankhya was through his books.
 
Regards,
 
Sunil K. Bhattacharjya


--- On Thu, 5/21/09, Bhadraiah Mallampalli <vaidix at hotmail.com> wrote:


From: Bhadraiah Mallampalli <vaidix at hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] Sankhya & Yoga
To: advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org
Date: Thursday, May 21, 2009, 10:30 AM



Dear Shri Bhattacharjya,



Apart from Nirguna Brahman, even a causal state has to be asiddha because it can not be the result of 

any meditation, practice etc. Simply it can not be the effect of any thing you do. So you have to become 

the cause (or make sure to eliminate all effects by not creating any more effects or through akarma). 



The samkhya term prakRiti seems to be a kind of parallel to prajna. pra means beginning to or emerging. 

jna is knowledge, whereas kRt is related to work. So what is prajna for uttara mimimsakas may be prakRt 

for purva mimamsakas, this is just a speculation. 



s'v.U.IV.10 talks of prakRti as mAya and the great Lord mAyin. IV.11 continues to talk of the same deva 

and IV.12 equates mAyin to Rudra. So prakRiti might be Rudra's wife. 



Purusha is usually a bit lower than prajna/prakRti, because purusha has defined limbs and originates vedas; 

but somehow Samkhya made purusha/prakRiti as a pair. Where in Shrutis do you see purusha and prakRti as pair? 

We need this to know where to draw a line between samkhya and Samkhya. Why is this mAyin same as 

purusha in later Samkhya?



That still leaves items like pradhAna open for interpretation. s'v.U. I.10 says pradhAna is perishable and 

Hara is imperishable, and the one deva (Hara) rules the perishable and the individual self. This is somewhat 

interesting: Advaita equates individual self with Brahman (the universal self). Now s'v.U introduces a layer 

called Hara between Universal self and individual self, and this Hara rules the individual self and the pradhAna. 

Can pradhAna be interpreted as "the initial state"? as the sum total of all ignorance the individual self has 

and it should also represent the vidhi/fate/current state. When jiva realizes that pradhana is mAya (illusion) 

will jiva realize oneself as mAyin/Hara/Rudra or Brahman? 



S'v.U. takes wild swings in all directions. In IV.12-13 it talks of Rudra as the only one deva, and says 

'Let us offer oblations to him'. So Rudra is still a deva who expects offerings etc (depending on how you see it?).  



Regards

Bhadraiah

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