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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.org
Acharya Shri Kailashsagarsuri Gyanmandir
The Systems of Rāmānuja......
523
concludes that 'to be a knowing subject is the essential character of the Self and that Self is of atomic size.''
Rāmānuja distinguishes the knower from the knowledge and regards knowledge as an attribute of the former. He points out the proposition 'I am conscious', in which I, the subject is different from the term 'conscious '; consciousness belongs to it just as a stick belongs to Devadatta.?
The higher Self which is self-luminous (FTUSAIT) assumes the form of the individual soul. The higher Self is purely intelligence in its own nature and it does not possess any other material impurity. Ramanuja describes the Supreme Self as intelligence pure, free from stain, free from grief, free from all contact with desire and other affections, everlastingly one.. the highest Lord Vasudeva (angia ) apart from whom nothing exists.3 This Supreme Self itself is consciousness. In its case there is no distinction between the substrate of consciousness and the consciousness itself. They are identical in its case. It is Self-luminous consciousness itself which constitutes the knowing soul (jivātmā). Rāmānuja further identifies them and maintains that in the absence of intelligence the Self would cease to exist as Self." This Self is omniscient and the eternal revealer of all objects.
1 Rūmānuja — Com. on Vedānta Sūtras. Tr. Thibaut, 2.3.31, p. 551.
2 Ibid. 1.1.1, p. 62. 3 Ibid, 1.1.1, p. 23. 4 Ibid. 1.1.1, p. 37.
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