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VIVEKACŪDAMANI
173
बीजं संसृतिभूमिजस्य तु तमो देहात्मधोरङकुरः
रागः पल्लवमम्बु कर्म तु वपुः स्कन्धोऽसवः शाखिकाः। अग्राणीन्द्रियसंहतिश्च विषयाः पुष्पाणि दुःखं फलं
नानाकर्मसमुद्भवं बहुविधं भोक्ताऽत्र जीवः खगः ॥१४७॥ bijam samsștibhūmijasya tu tamo dehātmadhīrankuraḥ rāgah pallavam ambu karma tu vapuh skandho'savah
sākhikāḥ 1 agrāṇindriyasamhatiśca visayāḥ puşpāni duḥkham phalam nānākarmasamudbhavam bahuvidham bhoktā'tra jīvaḥ
khagah 11
Tamas (ajñāna) is the seed of this tree of samsāra. The shoot is the mistaking of the body as the ātman. Desire is the tender sprout; karma is the water. The body is the trunk. The prāņas are the branches. The contact of the senses with objects are the tendrils. The sense-objects are the flowers. Suffering is the fruit arising from different karmas. The experiencer is the jiva, the bird who eats the fruit.
Samsāra itself is a tree (bhūmijah). Its seed, the primal cause is tamas or ajñāna. tu shows that ajñāna alone is the cause; nothing else; The idea that the body is the ātman is the shoot (ankura) as it is caused solely by ajñāna. Rāga is the tender sprout as the sprout comes after the shoot. This rāga takes the form of thinking that desires for sense-objects by reason of their being conducive to the body, are also good to the ātman. Ambu is the water which is necessary for the growth of the tree. It takes the form of karmas. tu as before is for emphasis and exclusion. It is said: kurvate karma bhogāya, karma kartum ca bhuñjate. (Pañcadašī) “One works to eat and eats to work.” This karma is two-fold, punya and its opposite. The trunk of the tree is the body wherefrom the branches come off, i.e., the middle part of the tree is said to be the skandha. The winds shaking the tree (and which are produced by the agitation of its leaves) are the five prāņas. The tendrils (agrāņi) are the combinations of the sense-organs, as the jñānendriyas like the eye and the karmendriyas like hands. They depend on the präna for their functioning. This is clear from the debate between the indriyas and prāņa in the śruti.
The tendrils, it is well known, depend on the branches. The visayas are sound, touch, form, taste and smell. The flowers are connected with the tendrils. The fruit is grief as it follows the connec
