Does Purusha will?

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

Ferenc Ruzsa <f_ruzsa at ISIS.ELTE.HU> wrote:

>Quality is, of course, a rather vague term; some would distinguish it from
>attributes etc.; in a formal sense, however, there can be no doubt that
>even
>the vedAnta Atman has some qualities, e.g. nitya, mukta. In the early and

Strictly speaking, in advaita vedAnta, these are not so much positive
attributes of the Atman, as the absence of the opposite, e.g. nitya means
not anitya, mukta means not baddha, etc. See, for example, Sankara's
comments on the upanishadic line satyam jnAnam anantam brahma.

>classical sAMkhya I think that puruSa, clear consciousness, can have
>qualities: the qualities that qualify consciousness.

I think this is a question of talking at cross-purposes because of
translational limitations. Quality, to an Indian ear, seems to imply guNa,
which of course, the sAMkhyan purusha is devoid of, technically. But it is a
different question whether the purusha is viSishTa or not, which is what you
are saying. A different word than 'quality' would clear the issue.

>think thoughts with propositional content: in SK 64 it must be the puruSa
>who thinks: "the tattvas are not me; they are not mine; I am not the
>tattvas" (evaMtattvAbhyAsAn "nAsmi na me nAham" ity).

Note that the content here is purely negational, so that this brings up the
nature of negation in sAMkhya. The issue might be better understood by
contrasting it with the mImAMsA, which gives abhAva or anupalabdhi the
status of a separate pramANa, whereas the sAMkhya does not.

> From another angle, what does the purusha think with? After all, the
apparati of awareness such as manas and buddhi are classed together with the
tattvas.

Regards,
Vidyasankar


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