Does Purusha will?

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

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

one could try to interpret SK 64 in a
>roundabout way. The buddhi (or antaHkaraNa) will then think in a kind of
>meta-language - something like this: "If you, puruSa, could think, you
>would
>be right in thinking: 'the buddhi is not me; it is not mine; I am not the
>buddhi'."
>     This latter solution seems to me rather complicated; anyway, all of
>this
>is - and I am afraid, must remain for ever - mere speculation. A pity.

Well, at this juncture, one could take recourse to the yogasUtrabhAshya
which interprets viveka-khyAti as sattva-purusha-anyatA-khyAti, although I
have not been able to work out who perceives this anyatA, the purusha or the
sattva (buddhi).

Or else, one could turn to vedAnta, which has descriptions like paSyaty
AtmAnam AtmanA, Atmany eva avasthAnam etc.

Finally, this crucial problem shows us why we should not view sAMkhya, yoga
and vedAnta as mutually exclusive darSanas, at least in their historical
development, notwithstanding the dualism of some schools and the non-dualism
of others. A large part of what is called proto-sAMkhya in modern literature
should also be called proto-vedAnta. I believe this angle of reasoning would
be fruitful in discussions of the works attributed to gauDapAda (sAMkhya and
vedAnta) and Sankara (vedAnta and yoga), but I am afraid that this has not
yet guided critical scholarship.

Regards,
Vidyasankar


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