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VIVEKACŪDĀMAŅI
out the connection of super-imposition. Similarly, being with organs, being with mind, being with the body are products of mithyā and ajñāna (wrong knowledge). Possession of these things is due to the false identification born of attachment.
For one whose ajñāna has been burnt by direct intuitional realisation (Brahma-sākşātkāra), where will attachment arise, where again identification? Therefore, by the use of the three words: nirindriyasya (of one without organs), niścetasaḥ (of one without the mind, i.e., without the mind operating outward), nirākrteh (of one without the sense of the body) has been declared that the jivanmukta is bereft of the means of acquiring punya and pāpa through speech, the mind and the body.
Tārkikas predicate punya and pāpa of the ātman only.
nirviksteņ: of what is unchanging. If what is nitya (eternal) is associated with anitya in the event of being subject to punya and pāpa due to prescribed and prohibited karmas, the ātman will become anitya. Hence the ātman is said to be vikrtiśūnya: devoid of change. For, it has been declared by Śrī Toțakācārya in his Śruti Samuddharana: na hi nityam anityagunena guņi: "By reason of its association with a quality which is non-eternal, what is so qualified is not eternal". 62
In the Brahma Sūtras, in the Viyadadhikarana, it has been said that the sky is anitya (non-eternal) by its association with sabda (sound) which is anitya.
So, I am in essence unchanging; my mülājñāna (primordial nescience) has been destroyed; I am not connected with the upādhis of the form of the body, the organs, and the mind; my experience (of the ātman) is infinite: I am of the nature of self-effulgence which is unlimited and unconcealed. Then how will punyas attach to me? How again will pāpa affect me? Śri Bhagavatpäda quotes śruti in support of this by saying: brūte hyananvāgatamityapi śrutiḥ: "The śruti declares that he is not accompanied (by punya and pāpa). Vide ananvāgatam punyena ananvāgatam pāpena tīrno hi sadā sarvan śokān hrdayasya bhavati (Brh.): "Unaccompanied by punya, unaccompanied by pāpa, he becomes one who has crossed all griefs of the heart.” By this it has been taught that in dreamless sleep, though there is then the operation of primordial nescience (mūlājñāna), there is no super-imposition wrought by it, and one is un
62. The idea is that what is qualified by a guna cannot be said to be nitya, eternal. Having a guna is a mark of the anitya, for guņa itself is anitya.
