[Advaita-l] Query: co-relation between 'Ashrama' and 'purushArtha'

[Keshava PRASAD Halemane]

praNaams  Sri Jaldhar Vyas ji. 
On Monday, 4 May 2015 11:37 AM, Jaldhar H. Vyas via Advaita-l <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:
> 
> We can visualize it as a table
> 

Oh! that tabular form seems to be a interesting way to present the relationship between the aashrama and the purushaartha. Here, i am reminded of Swami Chinmayananda ji using his 'patent' visual BMI-chart. Also, i am reminded of having read Profvk's elegant combinatorial mathematics of the guNatraya partitions, that shows constructively the 28(=1^2+2^2+3^2) distinctly different partition types, which when re-grouped (as per the rule of relative dominance, etc) naturally form the four (and exactly four, no more no less) distinct varnas!  It was Sri V Subrahmanian who was kind enough to suggest to me to read through Profvk's paper  http://goo.gl/ZWX6OW  in response to one of my earlier querries - that was w.r.t. the origin of the shlOka "janmanaa jaayatE . . . " etc. 

Now, let me share here (at least for my own better understanding) my little bit of whatever-thinking on the matter of  caturvidha-puruShaartha :- IMHO: Although  "dharma-artha-kaama-mOkSha"  form the  caturvidha-puruShaartha  in a relative spatial-temporal sense; mOkSha is indeed the one and only one puruShaartha  in an absolute sense.  And dharma (read it as 'swadharma') is the 'key' therefor.  The other two have only a nominal/symbolic presence.  One (popular) explanation that i have heard is that artha-kaama must be practiced within the bounds of dharma and directed towards mOkSha. The 'secret' lies in reading that string of four words in reverse order; that is "mOkSha-kaama-artha-dharma" - which is a statement that answers the possible question "why dharma?" by declaring the necessity to follow  'dharma' (and 'avoid' all forms of 'adharma') in order to achieve whatever is the only puruShaartha to be achieved, namely mOkSha. 
 praNaamsKeshava Prasad Halemane