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VIVEKACŪDĀMAŅI
out such superimposition there can be no activity. That is why rajas is the cause of bondage. This is referred to in the Adhyāsabhāsya in Śri Bhagavatpāda's commentary on the Brahma-Sūtras when he says: na hyanadhyastātmabhāvena dehena kaścit vyāpriyate: "Nor does anybody act by means of a body on which the nature of the ātman has not been superimposed”.
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Now is explained the power of tamas which is the precondition for the functioning of vikṣepaśakti and the cause of samsāra etc.
एषाऽऽवृति म तमोगुणस्य शक्तिर्यया वस्त्ववभासतेऽन्यथा।
सैषा निदानं पुरुषस्य संसृतेः विक्षेपशक्तेः प्रसरस्य हेतुः ॥११५ ॥ eşāvștir nāma tamoguṇasya
saktir yayā vastvavabhāsate'nyathā 1 saişā nidānam puruşasya samsșteh
vikṣepsakteḥ prasarasya hetuḥ 11
The veiling power belongs to tamas. It makes for the wrong projection of objects differently (from what they are). It is the root cause of the functioning of the project, ing power and is the original cause for the procession of samsāra (man's transmigration).
That concealing power by which a thing appears different from what it is, that by which the real which is of the nature of Existence, Intelligence and Bliss appears otherwise through the antahkarana, the body etc., belongs to tamoguņa. It is the original cause of samsāra, characterised by grief, birth, old age, death, etc. Due to misapprehension, the qualities of the anātman are supposed to attach to the ātman which is asamsārin, which is free from the shackles of samsāra. Therefore, it is the concealing power (ävaraņasakti) issuing from a misapprehension and causing one to see a thing as what it is not which is of the source of samsāra. In the absence of this concealing power, the power of wrong projection cannot function in the least. Hence the expression: vikṣepaśakteḥ prasarasya hetuḥ: "the cause for the origination of the activity of the vikṣepa-sakti”. The wrong projection of the serpent arising on the concealment of the rope produces fear etc., not otherwise. Hence it is that for the jñānins, though the vikşepa-saki acts on them as the result of prārabdha-karma, there is no bondage for them; for in their case the concealing power (āvarana-sakti) has been
