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Suthra-13-Anandhamayo abhyAsAth-1-1-13



The Self  consisting of bliss because of repetition.



In Taittreya upanishad there is a passage describing the five sheaths
annamaya,prANamaya, manOmaya,vijnAnamaya and Anandhamaya kOsas. Starting
from annamayakOsa, that is, the gross body which is the outermost sheath
of the individual, 'sa VA Esha purushO annarasamayah,'(Taitt.2-2-1)
which is made up of food, the subtler sheaths made of prANA, vital air,
manas, intellect and finally the sheath consisting of bliss are
described one by one. The text talks of the bliss sheath as the
innermost and the Athman, 'thasmAth vA EthasmAth vijnAnamayAth anyah
antharah AthmA Anandhamayah.(Taitt.2-5-1)



Here a doubt is raised as to whether the blissful self  mentioned in the
passage is the individual self subjected to bondage and release or it is
the Supreme self, ParmAthma. The opponent argues that it is the
individual self because of the subsequent statement 'thasya Esha Eva
sArira Athmaa, of the  preceding one this is the self, sArira.The  word
sArira means the soul in a body and the individual soul, which is
connected with the body, must be meant as the blissful self.



Though Brahman is spoken of as the cause of everything in the Chandogya
text, 'it willed to become many,'which has been explained in the
previous suthras, it has been shown to be identical with the individual
self by the statements 'anena jeevEna Athmana anupravisya, entering into
this jiva as its self,' and 'thou art that.' As in the sentence 'this is
that Devadatta ,' the identity is established through sAmAnADHikaraNya,
the principle pf coordination.



The opponent explains the TaittrEya passage thus:

The passage begins with the affirmation 'brahmavidhApnOthi param, he who
knows the Brahman attains the Supreme,' which shows that the real nature
of the individual self is to be attained by knowing Brahman. That the
jiva is devoid of acith, the insentient non-self is denoted by the next
sentence 'sathyam jnAnam anantham brahma.' moksha is thus the attainment
of the real nature, as made out by the text ' na ha vai sasarirasya
sathah priyApriyayOrapahathirasthi; asariram vA va santham na priyApriyE
sprsathah,'(Chan.8-12-1) which means that  as long as the jiva is in the
body there is no freedom from pleasure and pain but they do not touch
him once he gets out of embodiment. So the blissful state is the
recovery of the true nature of the jiva who is in no way connected with
the insentient body, prana manas and the intellect but it is spoken of
as being inside them all, by the principle 'sAkhAchandhranyaya. That is,
in order to show the moon to someone it is pointed out to be above the
branch of  a tree, sAkhA, but actually it is not, and the branch serves
only as an indication but it is i no way connected to the moon .
Similarly, the Self of an individual is indicated by mentioning the body
as the outermost sheath and prana which is inside that, and manas which
is inside prana and intellect which is inside manas and the Self is
indicated as that which is inside even the intellectual sheath while
actually it is not in any way connected with any of these mentioned
therein.



It cannot be argued, says the poorvapakshin, that Brahman is different
from the individual self because of the declaration 'brahma puccham
prathishTA,(Taitt.II-1) Brahman is the tail that supports,' In the
passages describing the other sheaths we find the words, 'prthivee
puccham prathishTA, the earth is the tail that supports,' etc. it only
denoted the figurative presentation with head ,sides and tail specified
whic make one whole of a body. Similarly the word puccha is used as the
supporting part of the whole.



Moreover if Brahman is other than the individual self it would have been
spoken as being inside the bliss sheath as its inner self in the form
'thasmAth vA EthasmAth AnandhamayAth anyah antharah AthmA brahma.' But
there is no continuation of the series perceived. Hence the
poorvapakshin concludes that the individual self, which is in its real
state is all bliss being free from pleasure and pain, is the self
mentioned as being inside the bliss sheath, the bliss is meant to be the
nature the termination 'maya' indicating all bliss and not in the sense
of possession of bliss.Thus  the opponent rests his argument.



SuthrakAra, says Ramanuja, refutes this by the suthra 'Anandhamayo
abhyAsAth.'  The self described as blissful is the Brahman because of
the repetition.

















[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



 
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