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XXXVI] Moral Responsibility
93 with the power of māyā. This power gives it a special character as a knower, by which it can enjoy or suffer pleasure and pain, and which is limited to the body and the egoism. It is by virtue of this manas that the soul is called a jīva. When through Brahmaknowledge its threefold association with impurities is removed, then it becomes like Brahman, and its self-knowledge in a liberated state manifests itself. This knowledge is almost like Brahmaknowledge. In this state the individual soul may enjoy its own natural joy without the association of any of the internal organs, merely by the manas. The manas there is the only internal organ for the enjoyment of bliss and there is no necessity of any external organs. The difference between the individual soul and God is that the latter is omniscient and the former knows things only particularly during the process of birth and rebirth. But in the actual state of liberation the souls also become omniscient. Srikantha also holds that the souls are all atomic in size, and that they are not of the nature of pure consciousness, but they all possess knowledge as their permanent quality. In all these points Śrīkantha differs from Sankara and is in partial agreement with Rāmānuja. Knowledge as consciousness is not an acquired quality of the soul as with the Naiyāyikas or the Vaiseșikas, but it is always invariably co-existent in the nature of the selves. The individual souls are also regarded as the real agents of their actions, and not merely illusory agents, as some philosophical theories hold. Thus Sāmkhya maintains that the prakrti is the real agent and also the real enjoyer of joys and sorrows, which are falsely attributed to the individual souls. According to Srikantha, however, the souls are both real agents and real enjoyers of their deeds. It is by the individual will that a soul performs an action, and there is no misattribution of the sense of agency as is supposed by Sāmkhya or other schools of thought. The souls are ultimately regarded as parts of Brahman, and Srikantha tries to repudiate the monistic view that God falsely appears as an individual soul through the limitations of causes and conditions (upādhi)?.
1 tat-sadrśa-gunatvāt apagata-samsārasya jīvasya svarūpānandānubhavasādhanam manorūpam antah-karanam anapekṣita-bāhya-karanam asti iti gamyate. jñājñau iti jīvasya ajñatvam kimcij jñatvam eva. asamsāriņaḥ parameśvarasya tu sarvajñatvam ucyate. ataḥ samsāre kimcij jñatvam muktau sarvajñatvam iti jñātā eva ātmā. Srikantha's bhāşya on Brahma-sütra, II. 3. 19, pp. 142-3.
2 Srikantha's bhāşya on Brahma-sutra, II, 3. 42-52.
