World of Philosophy

Author(s): Christopher Key Chapple, Intaj Malek, Dilip Charan, Sunanda Shastri, Prashant Dave
Publisher: Shanti Prakashan

Page 739

a jīva is able to accommodate his power to the task on hand. God enables him to lift a blade of grass with an iota of his energy, and also to move a mountain when necessary. Jīva's claim to free dynamism falls to pieces at every moment of action. One has to accept that the god-likeness of human action is owing to the actual operation of God himself even when jīva acts, for all practical purposes.
IV
The jīvakartatvādhikarana of the third pāda, of the second adhyāya, which happens to be almost the middle of the opus, addresses itself to the task of putting the picture straight, without just resorting to the mere gymnastics of logic or flourish of rhetoric. In this section, the procedure is more straightforward. While in the itaravyapadeśādhikarana of the first pāda, is a dialogue with a sceptic, with the tools of logic, here the issue is placed on a higher plane, the framework of the śrutis, the traditionally Vedic framework. The earlier discourse is an appeal to a rational mind; the present one is a discourse that reaches beyond the realm of reason. The realm of the Srutis is one of sovereign certainty but it may have its own apparent impediments to truth. The huge body of utterances or insights has to be seen as a consistent one, transcending apparent inconsistencies. As the utterances are honoured as absolute testimonies to truth, you cannot oppose one truth to another : you have to see the samanvaya, the harmonization that is a consummation of the whole truth. The first sūtra, karta śāstrarthavatvāt" (II.3.33) makes a definitive statement. It says the jīva also is an agent, if the śāstra, the Vedic lore, has to be meaningful, since the śāstra exists for the destiny of the jīva also. Madhvāchārya's bhāsya brings out the meaning of the sūtra unambiguously. Jivasya kartrtvābhāve śāstrasya aprayojakatva prāpteh jivo 'pi kartā' (if the jīva has no agency, the śāstra would be purposeless, and so the jīva is also an agent] The jīva has to be moved to the centre again, since, though God himself is the sovereign agent, according to the Vedic lore which implicates the jīva in action, since the whole lore is concerned about the entire career of the jiva from the moment of creation to the consummation in either mukti (salvation), or tamas (damnation) also. The Paramātman and the Jivatman form an indivisible (sayujā) dyad. The God of the Vedic tradition does not blot out what is not God. He is an all-inclusive Being and the perfect fruition of the individual jīva lies in the final unification of jīva with God. Madhvāchārya considers that the issue concerned is with reference to the Brhadāranyaka passage which culminates in Yatkarma Kurute tadabhisampadyate (He indeed attains the fruit of what he does). The Sarīrabrāhmana in which this passage occurs is about the way the jīva's avidya (nescience) is abolished and then he is purified like gold at the time of his final death and is made ready for the ascent, utkrānti, on his way to moksa. The very next mantra
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