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136
The Visista-dvaita School
[CH.
with. There is an excellent commentary by Varavara muni. The Tattva-sekhara is a work in four chapters. The first chapter quotes scriptural evidences in support of the view that Nārāyaṇa is the highest God and the ultimate cause; in the second chapter he describes the nature of self by reference to scriptural testimony. The same description of the nature of self is continued in the third chapter. In the fourth chapter he deals with the ultimate goal of all souls, self-surrender to God. He says that the ultimate summum bonum (puruṣārtha) consists in the servitude (kainkarya) to God roused by love of Him (prīti-kārita), due to the knowledge of one's own nature and the nature of God in all His divine beauty, majesty, power and supreme excellence. Not all servitude is undesirable. We know in our ordinary experience that servitude through love is always pleasurable. In the ordinary idea of emancipation, a man emphasizes his own self and his own end. This is therefore inferior to the summum bonum in which he forgets his own self and regards the servitude of God as his ultimate end. Lokācārya then refutes the various other conceptions of the ultimate goal in other schools of philosophy. He also refutes the conception of the summum bonum as the realization of one's own nature with a sense of supreme subordination (para-tantratvena svā-nubhava-mātram na puruṣārthaḥ). This is also technically called kaivalya in the Śrīvaiṣṇava system. Our ultimate end is not cessation of pain, but enjoyment of bliss. Positive bliss is our final aim. It is held that in the emancipation as described above the individual realizes himself in close association with God and enjoys supreme bliss thereby; but he can never be equal to Him. Bondage (bandha) is true and the removal of bondage is also true. Prapatti, or self-surrender to God, is regarded as a means to cessation of bondage. This prapatti may be direct (a-vyavahita) and indirect (vyavahita). In the first case the selfsurrender is complete and absolute and done once for all'. The in
1 Prapatti is defined as follows:
bhagavad-ājñātivartana-nivṛtti-bhagavad-ānukülya-sarva-śaktitvā-nusandhānaprabhṛti-sahitaḥ yacña-garbho vijṛmbha-rūpa-jñāna-višeṣaḥ; tatra jñeyākāra Isvarasya nirapekṣa-sādhanatvam jñānākaro vyavasāyā-tmakatvam; etac ca śāstrārthatvat sakyt kartavyam. Tattva-sekhara, p. 64.
Just as the Sankarites hold that, once the knowledge regarding the unity of the individual with Brahman dawns through the realization of the meaning of such texts, there remains nothing to be done. So here also the complete seltsurrender to God is the dawning of the nature of one's relation to God, and, when this is once accomplished, there is nothing else to be done. The rest remains with God in His adoption of the devotee as His own.
