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that the Vedas recognise mokṣa of the type of the extinction of a lamp (2016).
But Prabhasa has not understood the true meaning; 'asarira' like 'adhana' contains a negation of sarira in the case of an existent entity. As the existing Devadatta is 'adhana' (devoid of wealth), so the existent 'jiva' is 'asarira' (devoid of body). Thus asarira' means the soul without the body. If Devadatta were non-existent like the ass's horn, we would not say of him that he is 'adhana'. Similarly the jiva can be termed 'asarira? only if it is existent. But the term in the Veda is 'asarira' alone which can refer to anything devoid of a body. Why should this epithet be referred to jiva or soul? This difficulty can be resolved thus. The negation is of the type of paryudasa (exclusion), and where this is found the import is that of a thing which is similar to it and not entirely different from it. There is a grammatical rule: 'Nañ-ivayuktam anyasadṛśadhikarane loke tatha hy arthagatiḥ'- In popular usage, the word to which 'na' and 'iva' are affixed, means another but similar thing. To take an instance, abrahmana' means non-brähmana; i. e. one who is not a brāhmaṇa, but yet like a brahmana, e. g. kṣatriya, etc., but it cannot mean mere non-being, a non-entity. Similarly 'asarira' can refer to one who has no body, but yet is like one who has a body, i. e. to the jiva, but not to anything that is utterly non-existent like an ass's horn. That 'embodiedsasarira' and 'unembodied-asarira' denote the same thing is because of similarity, on account, of the 'upayoga' (conscious activity) being identical in both cases. In the state of worldly existence, soul and body get mixed up like water and milk, and it is not possible to separate them in that state, so the body should not be put forth as one of the reasons for raising an objection against regarding the embodied soul as similar to the unembodied soul. This clearly demonstrates that 'asarira' in 'asariram va vasantam...' means the unembodied soul, and not a non-entity like ass's horn, etc. (2017-18).
Moreover, the expression 'va vasantam' suggests that the soul continues to exist, abide (vasantam) in the state of mokṣa
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