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III. VII]
AVIDYĀ IN THE SAIVA SCHOOL
139
tion of invisible merits (dharma) and demerits (adharma) according as they are good or bad. These merits and demerits constitute karmapāśa which is responsible for the worldly vicissitudes—the happy and unhappy experiences of the soul. The soul involved in the worldly process has lost its self-contained complacency (aptakāmatva) and is consequently driven into perpetual quest of the good things of the world in order to regain the lost paradise. It gets into possession of these good things in conformity with its deserts. Each soul has its own karma-pāśa which is beginningless in the sense that it had an unbroken continuity in the past and not in the sense that it is an unchanging invariable constant. Karman is ever changing. But its continuity had no break, because that would have resulted in the emancipation of the soul. It cannot be an invariable constant because in that case emancipation would never be possible.? Karman matures during the period of dissolution and fructifies during the period of creation. It remains embedded in the principle of mäyä (impure matter) during the dissolution and does not suffer attrition or destruction until its effects are experienced by the soul concerned.?
The third form of pāśa is known as māyā-pāśa. Māyā (impure matter), as we have said, is the material stuff of the lower order of evolution. The soul ensnared by mala and karman gets entangled in the cosmic order evolved out of māyā. The body and sense-organs and the external world in which it has to live out its predetermined career are all evolved out of māyā which is their matrix. This māyā is not an unreal fiction. It is an eternal real entity which is ultimate and uncaused. It is as real and independent as mahāmāyā (pure matter) which is the material stuff of the higher order of evolution. Māyā is a pāśa (trap) inasmuch as it encases the soul and keeps it enmeshed by itself.
The fourtho form of pāśa is constituted by mahāmāyā (pure matter) which is the material stuff of the pure order of creation. Mahāmāyā is pure matter and the bodies formed out of it are luminous. Only those souls which have destroyed their karma-pāśa and māyā-pāśa are entitled to have the luminous bodies evolved out of mahāmāyā, on the maturation of their mala and the consequent descent of the Divine Grace.
1 Cf. karma. 'nādi praväharūpeṇa, na cai 'kasyai 'va karmaṇaḥ sarvadā 'vasthänena. tathā sati bhāvarūpasya karmano 'năditvena 'tmavan nityataya nirmokṣa prasangāt-TP (Commentary), p. 58. 2 Cf. svāpe vipäkam abhyeti tat srstāv upayujyate māyāyāni vartate că ’nte na 'bhuktam kşayam eti ca.
--Sataratnasangraha, p. 57. 3 máyä сa vasturüpā mūlam viśvasya nityā sā.-TP, p. 58.
4 Sometimes only the above three forms of pāśa are mentioned. But in that case the fourth and the fifth forms of paša viz. mahāmāyā and the Lord's Yodha-sakti, are to be understood by implication. Vide TP (Commentary), p. 32.
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