Consciousness in visishtadvaita

[Mani Varadarajan]

> With respect, this still looks to me like forcing the author's hand. We know
> Ramanuja says that consciousness is a defining attribute of the self; but
> can we be sure that that is *all* he wanted to say -- so sure that we add
> explanatory footnotes to those remarks which seem to say something else,
> lest the reader be tempted to take the author literally?
>
> I have just reached the paragraph in the Sribhashya (1.1.1) which begins
> 'caitanyasvabhAvatA hi svayaMprakAzatA'. Ramanuja here makes the exact point
> I was looking for (so thanks again to John for pointing the way), using the
> simile of the flame and its lustre to illustrate the self and its
> consciousness: "Like a single *substance* (dravya) of light exists as lustre
> and as possessing lustre" (yathaikam eva tejodravyaM
> prabhA-prabhAvad-rUpeNAvatiSThate). It certainly looks to me as though
> Ramanuja is saying more than van Buitenen gives him credit for (in this
> particular instance).

Dear Martin:

I checked with a friend who is relatively well read in
SrIbhAshya.  You are correct, and I am mistaken; in
Visishtadvaita, the very svarUpa, the "stuff", of the jIva
is "caitanya" or consciousness.  This "svarUpa-bhUta-jnAna"
is what reveals to itself the "I" of the individual and is
_not_ a guNa.

Of course dharma-bhUta-jnAna by definition is a guNa, inseparable
from the jIva but capable of contraction or expansion.

So, van Buitenen may very well be misreading Ramanuja here.

Mani