Does the puruSa will? (was: Re: A text dealing with Ayurveda)

[Paolo Magnone]

On 4 May 99, Vidyasankar Sundaresan
<INDOLOGY at LISTSERV.LIV.AC.UK> wrote:


> Without turning this forum into a discussion list for Indian philosophies

Why, I would think Indian philosophy has at least as much right of
citizenship in Indology as, say, cultural politics, linguistics and
fantalinguistics.

> may I point out that adhyavasAya is preceded by the more "purposeful"
> activity that is called saMkalpa or saMkalpa-vikalpa? What we are talking
> about here demands that we look at the latter terms rather than adhyavasAya,
> if for nothing else but the fact that in classical sAMkhya,
> buddhi-adhyavasAya-sattva go together, while manas-saMkalpa-rajas go
> together.

I am not sure that saMkalpa is a more "purposeful" activity. In SK 27 manas
is said to partake of the nature of both karmendriya and buddhIndriya.
Apparently, it is a (sort of) buddhindrIya because it "grasps" things as
senses do (indriyam sAdharmyAt). But at the same time it is a (sort of)
karmendriya because it does so by actively "conforming" (saMkalpakam)
each distinct passive sensation (aural, visual etc.) into a synthetic whole
which is perception. Manas is the organ of synthetic perception, building on
the discrete sensations of the different senses.

In any case, be it as it may with the respective value of adhyavasAya and
saMkalpa, my point was that either (I vote for the former) is the source of
deliberation, while the puruSa is utterly devoid of will.

Regards,


----------------------------
Paolo Magnone
Catholic University of Milan
pmagnone at mi.unicatt.it
http://www.agora.stm.it/P.Magnone/jambu.htm