Does Purusha will?

[Ferenc Ruzsa]

     Vidyasankar Sundaresan wrote:
> Thus, Sankara is equating the list of eight in 7.4 with the list of eight
> in 13.5, and this is driven more by the internal logic of the text he is
> commenting upon, rather than the sAMkhya kArikAs. Verses 7.4 and 13.5 give
> different names for the items of the same list, and I see this as
> Sankara's way of explaining what may be objected to as internally
> contradictory in the text of the gItA.
The MBh preserved several widely different "sAMkhya" versions, and clearly
the conceptual framework in the gItA is far from uniform. It seems that the
later chapters (after the twelfth) represent a terminology closer to
classical sAMkhya; and this must have been more familiar for zaGkara. So the
reason why he preferred the list in ch.13 might well be because this was the
standard sAMkhya version.

> All in all, it seems to me that Sankara is giving his
> readers new wine (advaita vedAnta) in an old bottle (sAMkhya terminology).
Sure!

> Now, leaving Sankara aside, the question is one of the relative date of
> the kArikAs (i.e. ISvarakRshNa) vis-a-vis the bhagavad gItA.
I thought it was more or less the accepted opinion that the BhG is older
than the SK. Are there substantial arguments to question this?
[In his next posting:]
> To say that sAMkhyan terms are known first of all from the
> kArikAs, one has to show that the kArikAs precede these ... in time.
Sorry for the misunderstanding: when I wrote "first of all" I meant
'eminently' and not 'historically earliest".

[On the number of the indriyas:]
> The kArikAs opt for thirteen.
No: in the SK there are clearly eleven indriyas, see SK 24-27, 49. Thirteen
is the number of the components of the antaHkaraNa.

     Nanda Chandran wrote
> the analogy using the
> two birds in MundAka Upanishad. One bird which enjoys the world and the
> other, the mute spectator silently observing the first bird without being
> affected by the experience of the first bird.
> The Purusha though conscious is just the witness. It just observes the
> changes of prakriti.
The two birds - as can be seen from the context of the same passage in the
zvetAzvatara IV. 6 & 7 - are not the puruSa and a material ego (or
whatever), but two puruSas: one
liberated, one bound; and it is the liberated 'bird' that looks on without
eating, anaznann abhicAkazIti.

> All brAhmanical schools, accept that the Self is eternal. By eternal, they
> also accept that it is changeless.
I have a feeling that the equation undecaying = unchanging was the invention
of advaita, and also I think that its import into sAMkhya was a later
development, clearly present only in the yukti-dIpikA. I also think that the
conception of kUTastha is not only missing in, it is also inconsistent with
the SK.

> Ishware Krishna makes the Self devoid of all qualities - even bliss.
The puruSa is aguNa in the SK, but it does not mean 'qualitiless', rather
'without the three guNas', i.e. the constituent qualities of prakRti.

> Liberation is in empirical terms - the cessation of desire. To
> make the Purusha desire, would defeat all purpose.
Liberation is the cessation of suffering (also for the Buddha). The path is
to overcome wordly desires. The *liberated* puruSa clearly has no
inclination towards the prakRti any more: dRSTA mayety upekSakaH (SK 66; He
is indifferent *because* he has seen her).


     Paolo Magnone wrote:
> as the milk flows *not* because the calf wills it, but just
> *for the sake* of the calf's growth.
> What we have here is a sort of built-in teleology which can dispense with
> the need of conscious purposes; but in any case, if there is purpose at
> all, it is the nature's.
[Also Nanda Chandran: > The purpose or will, is that of PrAkriti]
The milk flows to feed the calf - but it does not want to feed him; while he
*wants* to be fed.
Of course all occurrences of artha in the SK can be interpreted as
'advantage', not 'purpose', as is the standard procedure in order to get the
later notion of absolutely unchanging soul. But the SK gains in consistency
if we abandon this routine.
   Before creation the puruSa was fine - prakRti could not serve his
advantage by her evolution. On the other hand, with a more naive conception
of puruSa we can say: he noticed nature and wanted to see her; then he found
only death and suffering; so now he wants to be alone again. (Indeed in SK
17 kaivalyArthaM pravRttiH is a symptom of the puruSa).
   Generally my position is not that there cannot be a SK interpretation
without a puruSa willing; rather that there can be one with it - and that it
seems to be a more coherent interpretation, but one less in accord with the
commentaries.

>> A judge [ in Sanskrit, draSTR :-) ]
> This is a misrepresentation! draSTR is certainly not meant to
> signify a judge in the SK.
Sorry [ :-( ] for the misunderstanding. The judge was an example independent
of the SK, and the remark in brackets was intended as a joke only; I wanted
to show this by the :-) symbol, representing a smiling face [sleeping, I
suppose :-) ].

> But surely, when buddhi is
> overwhelmed by tamas, hence characterized by ajJAna and the rest, it
> cannot be equated with adhyavaSaya in point of fact?
I do not know. When even the indriyas are said to be sAttvika ekAdazakaH, it
would seem very hard to conceive of a buddhi with a dominance of the guNa
tamas. It is not clear, whether a blade of grass has a buddhi or not (it
seems that it has); perhaps it has a minuscule buddhi only (after all it
grows toward light) or its buddhi might be covered by tamas. The "tAmasaM
buddhi-rUpaM" mentioned in SK 23 (which is, I think, a problematic verse
from the point of view of textual criticism) is clearly adharma, ajJAna,
rAga and anaizvarya; and that seems to be adhyavasAya all right, though
*improper* grasping (or conceptualization or understanding).

> But at the same time it [the manas] 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.
I generally agree: I would translate saMkalpaka as 'coordinator', following
gauDapAda (and also nyAya-sUtra IV.2.2, if I understood it correctly), and
also implying that manas coordinates the activity of the karmendriyas; i.e.
it translates the conceptual commands (or intentions) coming "from above"
into vegetative efferent impulses - a nice piece of anachronism, isn't it?
:-)

With best regards, Ferenc
--------------------------------------------------------
Ferenc Ruzsa
assistant professor of metaphysics
Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest
e-mail: f_ruzsa at isis.elte.hu