Pravachanasara

SR No.: 003289
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: A N Upadhye
Publisher: Shrimad Rajchandra Ashram
Publication Year: 1964
Total Pages: 612
Language: Hindi, Sanskrit
Classification: Book_Devnagari
File Size: 16 MB

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Pravacanasāra
auspicious and pure (1, 9), which respectively indicate impiety, piety and purity (I, 11 etc.). Auspicious and inauspicious channels are indicative of transmigratory condition; when the soul is free, it has the pure manifestation (1, 46). The soul in its pure condition is without sense-qualities, is all the quality of sentiency, is beyond inferential mark and has no definable shape (II, 80); but, here, being in the association of karmic matter, it has received a concrete embodiment (I, 55; II, 25). The various grades of existence to which the soul is subjected in this round-of-rebirths are due to karmas (II, 25-6). When passional conditions are developed, the soul though non-concrete is bound by karmas which are concrete, just as the soul though devoid of colour etc. is able to see colour etc. (II, 81, 82). The soul really speaking is not the direct agent of karmas but only of its states of consciousness which being already tinged with passions etc. receive the karmas (II, 91, 92, 98).
Matter is concrete possessed of sensory qualities to its last unit (II, 40). The world is full of material bodies (II, 76), and the aggregatory process is going on because of their inherent qualities of cohesion and aridness (11,71 etc). The mattermolecules capable of becoming karmas, coming into contact with passional developments of the soul, are transformed into karmas (II, 77); further they inflow into the soul and remain there binding it (II, 86). Thus the passional states give rise to bondage (II, 87-8).
Really speaking the soul is pure in view of its liberated condition; but in this samsāra, being already associated with karman which results into further karmas the soul in its embodied condition, comes to have many material adjuncts: the body, mind, speech are all material. (II, 69-70). Matter-bodies which are transformed into karmas go to form the bodies that serve as the transmigratory equipments of the spirit; there are five such bodies: the physical, transformatory, electric, translocational and karmic (II, 78-9). The four life-essentials, namely, sense-organs, channels of activity, duration of life and respiration which characterise an embodied soul are all material being caused by the karmas (II, 55-6 etc.) Thus the senseorgans too are made of matter, and the soul in samsāra comes to have them, whether it is born in movable (trasa) or immovable (sthāvara) bodies (I, 57, II, 90).
(p. 70:) COMPARATIVE AND CRITICAL REMARKS ON THE NATURE OF SPIRIT.-- Upanişadic texts like Maitrāyaniya start the creative process with Prajāpati who enters the various creatures in the form of the breath of life etc. and apparently becomes the agent of everything like good and bad acts but in fact unaffected by them. But further we are told that the actual agent is another Ātman called Bhūtātman who under the influence of Prakrti becomes manifoldl. The first position is a thorough theistic one. The second position is perhaps the modification of the first possibly under Sāmkhya influence. The second position comes nearer the Jaina idea, though the Jainas do not accept any such One Atman which is capable of becoming manifold. Jainas and Mīmāmsakas agree in holding that Atman is constituted of caitanya, and that there is a multitude of separate souls. Pleasure and pain come to be experienced because of karmic association according to Jainism, while Mimämsakas simply say that they are changes in the soul-stuff.
1 Belvalkar & Ranade: History of Indian Philosophy Creative period p. 337.