Jain Journal 1990 01

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 11

JAIN JOURNAL
identity and difference between God and Man. Man's body and Soul are real. Then Soul is not pure and impersonal consciousness but a thinking substance with consciousness as its essential attribute. Hence, moksa is not the self-annulment in the Absolute but a self-realisation through self-surrender and self-effacement, the supreme satisfaction of religious emotion. The liberated Soul is not God but neither is he separated from his all-comprehensive existence, 17 even in the kingdom of God (vaikuntha). This is sayujya-bhakti (unitive devotion). To Madhva, the distinction between God and Self is real.18 Though the jivas are absolutely dependent upon God, they are active and dynamic.19 Hence mokṣa is "blessed fellowship” and not a mere identification. Thus in the state of mukti, there is not only the utter absence of pain but also the presence of positive bliss. To Nimbarka, with whom the Soul is both different/ non-different form (bhedāveda), complete submission results in both Godship and self-realisation, which is endless joy and bliss. Suddhadvaita school of Vallabha regards the relation between God and Soul as that of whole and part. Duality and distress go together. The moment, the Soul is one with God, we get final release which is utter bliss. To the other Vaisnavites like Sri Caitanyadeva, Jaideva, Vidyapati, Candidasa etc. to whom the ultimate reality is love and grace, liberation means love through divine grace. Bhakti is mukti.
In the Gitā we find the status of Soul as different fragments of God, hence moksa must be the unity with Purusottama, indeed a blissful state. However, it must be equivalence (sādharmya) with God and not identity (sārūpya). Put in the Upanisads as in the Advaita Vedanta, the realisation of th. ueness with God is the ideal of man, which is a state of ecstasy and .. pture, a joyous expansion of the Soul.
To the Kapalikas, moksa is found in the sweet embrace of Hara and Parvati (hara-pārvatyālingana), to the Pasupats, it lies in the holding of all dignity (parmais varyam); to the Udasins (atheists), it is in the extinction of egoism (ahamkāra nivytti); to the Vyayakaranas, it is in the power of speech (brahma rūpya hanya darsanam); to the Sarvaganas, it is in the eternal continum of the feeling of the highest felicity (nitya niratiśaya sukha bodh), etc. Broadly, there are two different approaches to the conception of liberation in Indian philosophy :
17 Sadhu Santideva, The Critical Examination of the Philosophy of Religion, Vol. II,
p. 986. 18 Madhva, Bhasya on Brahma-sutra, III. 3. 1. 19 Ibid., II. 3.38