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xv] The Philosophy of Bhāskara's Bhāsya 7 sense be regarded as a part of it; or just as the same air is seen to serve different life-functions, as the five prāņas, so the individual souls also may in some sense be regarded as parts of God. It is just and proper that the scriptures should command the individual souls to seek knowledge so as to attain liberation; for it is the desire for the highest soul (paramātman) or God or Brahman that is the cause of liberation, and it is the desire for objects of the world that is the cause of bondage?. This soul, in so far as it exists in association with ignorance, desires and deeds, is atomic in nature; and, just as a drop of sandal paste may perfume all the place about it, so does the atomic soul, remaining in one place, animate the whole body. It is by nature endowed with consciousness, and it is only with reference to the knowledge of other objects that it has to depend on the presence of those objects. Its seat is in the heart, and through the skin of the heart it is in touch with the whole body. But, though in a state of bondage, under the influence of ignorance, etc., it is atomic, yet it is not ultimately atomic in nature; for it is one with Brahman. Under the influence of buddhi, ahamkāra, the five senses and the five vāyus it undergoes the cycle of rebirths. But though this atomic form and the association with the buddhi, etc., is not essential to the nature of the soul, yet so long as such a relation exists, the agency of the soul is in every sense real; but the ultimate source of this agency is God Himself; for it is God who makes us perform all actions, and He makes us perform good actions, and it is He who, remaining within us, controls all our actions.
In all stages of life a man must perform the deeds enjoined by the scriptures, and he cannot rise at any stage so high that he is beyond the sphere of the duties of work imposed on him by the scriptures. It is not true, as Sankara says, that those who are fit to
rāgo hi paramātma-vişayo yaḥ sa mukti-hetuḥ vişaya-vişayo yaḥ sa bandhahetuh. Bhāskara-bhāsya.
2 Ibid. 11. 3. 18, 22, 23.
3 Bhāskara-bhāsya, 1. 1. I. In holding the view that the Brahma-sūtra is in a sense continuous with the Msimāmsă-sūtra, which the former must followfor it is after the performance of the ritualistic duties that the knowledge of Brahman can arise, and the latter therefore cannot in any stage dispense with the need for the former-and that the Brahma-sūtras are not intended for any superior and different class of persons, Bhāskara seems to have followed Upavarsa or Upavarşācārya, to whose commentary on the Mimāmsā-sūtra he refers and whom he calls the founder of the school (śāstra-sampradāya-pravartaka). Ibid. 1. 1. I, and 11. 2. 27. See also 1. 1. 4: ātma-jñānā-dhikytasya karmabhir vina apavargā-nupapatter jñānena karma samuccīyate.
