Re: 'Akshara' etc. in the BhG
From the Bhakti List Archives
• April 10, 2002
--- In bhakti-list@y..., "Krishna K"wrote: > With this intepretation of axara as mukta jIva, the questions would be: (a) Where is mukta-jIvopAsana mentioned? (b) why the singular despite the multiple mentioned for 'ksharaH'? esp when amukta jIvas don't become one on mukti (c) whether mukta or amukta jIvas are mentioned for upAsana, 7.20 and 9.23 clearly put 'upAsana of any other jIva' on a scale lower than that of Paramatma. In that light, isn't Arjuna's question in 12.01 redundant? > Dear Krishna, Let me preface this email by a warning that my knowledge of sanskrit is at the kindergarden level. In verse 12.1, the reference is to two classes of devotees (a) yE satatayuktAh bhaktAh tvAm paryupAsate, that is those who meditate on you, and (b) Ye aksharam avyaktam (paryupAsate), that is those who meditate on the akshara. My first impulse is to differentiate the sense of "paryupAsate" mean in the two cases. In the first case, it would mean loving meditation on nArAyaNA, and in the second case, it would merely have the sense of meditation on a tattva, in this case the true nature of the akshara or the jIva. (Thus the question of propitiating a being other than nArAyaNA does not arise in the second case, because the question of propitiating itself does not arise.) My understanding is that the "upAsana" could be used in both these senses. I leave it to you and others to comment on whether this reading is technically acceptable. The other solution proposed, if I understand Mani correctly, is that the phrase "Ye aksharam avyaktam (paryupAsate)" refers to the meditation on nArAyaNA as akshara in order to realize oneself as akshara. Thought this was worth recalling. -Kasturi -------------------------------------------------------------- - SrImate rAmAnujAya namaH - To Post a message, send it to: bhakti-list@yahoogroups.com Group Home: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bhakti-list Archives: http://ramanuja.org/sv/bhakti/archives/ Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
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