kartā śāstrārthavattvāt ..2.3.31..

↑

⇐ ПредыдущаяСтр 224 из 723Следующая ⇒

SUTRA II. 3. 31.

कर्ता शास्त्रार्थवत्त्वात्॥२.३.३१॥

kartā śāstrārthavattvāt ..2.3.31..

… Kartta, agent, …. Shastrarthavattvat, on account of the scripture having a purport.

31. The soul is alone the agent, and not the Prakriti, for thus the scriptures can have a rational interpretation. — 249.

COMMENTARY

The Jiva alone is the agent and not the Gunas of Prakriti. Why do we say so? Because, the scriptures can have no purport if the Gunas were the agents. In the scriptures we find injunctions like the following: «Let the person who desires heaven perform sacrifice»; «Let the person meditate on the Supreme Luminous Self»; etc. These texts can have a meaning only if the sentient souls were the agent, for agent alone can enjoy the fruit. They are meaningless if the Gunas were to be the agents, for if the non-sentient Gunas were the agents, the injunctions would not have boon addressed to the sentient souls, but to the insentient Gunas. The object of the scriptural injunction like the above is to produce in the soul a motive or desire to perform certain actions, in order to enjoy certain fruits. The injunctions produce the idea in the soul that certain acts are followed by certain results, and when that idea is produced, then the soul enters upon action, in order to enjoy the fruits thereof. This idea of cause and effect between certain action and its result or consequence cannot be produced in Prakriti, which is insentient and consequently incapable of having any such conception. Therefore, Prakriti is not the agent but the soul.

In the next Sutra the author further shows that soul is the agent.

Note: The following quotation from Ramanuja gives a more detailed reasoning:

If a non-sentient thing were the agent, the injunction would not be addressed to another being (viz., to an intelligent being — to which it actually is addressed). The term «Shastra» (scriptural injunction) moreover comes from to command, and commanding means impelling to action. But scriptural injunctions impel to action through giving rise to a certain conception (in the mind of the being addressed), and the non-sentient Pradhana cannot be made to conceive anything. Scripture, therefore, has a sense only, if we admit that none but the intelligent enjoyer of the fruit of the action is at the same time the agent. Thus the Purva Mimamsa declares «the fruit of the injunction belongs to the agent» (III., 7. 18).

The Purvapakshin had contended that the text ‘«if the slayer thinks, etc»., proves the self not to be the agent in the action of slaying, but what the text really means is only that the Self as being eternal cannot be killed. The text, from Smriti, which was alleged as proving that the Gunas only possess active power, refers to the fact that in all activities lying within the sphere of the Samsara, the activity of the Self is due not to its own nature, but to its contact with the different Gunas. The activity of the Gunas, therefore, must be viewed not as permanent, but occasional only. In the same sense Smriti says, «The reason is the connection of the soul with the Gunas, in its births, in good and evil wombs» (Gita, XIII., 21). Similarly, it is said there (XVIII., 16) that «he who through an untrained understanding looks upon the isolated Self as an agent, that man of perverted mind does not see», the meaning being that, since it appears from a previous passage that the activity of the Self depends on five factors (as enumerated in Shloka 16), he who views the isolated Self to be an agent has no true insight.

Познавательные статьи:



Организация работы процедурного кабинета

Статус республик в составе РФ

Понятие финансов, их функции и особенности

Сущность демографической политии