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Updated: May 19, 2025
Prakritijais Gunas is explained by Sreedhara as qualities born of one's nature such as Ragadveshadi. "Apply to work", i.e. to work as prescribed in the scriptures. Thus says Sankara. "To morning and evening prayers, etc." says Sreedhara. Sacrifices Vishnu's self as declared by the Srutis; work for sacrifice, therefore, is work for Vishnu's sake or gratification.
But, as in the pralaya state the three gunas are in a state of equipoise, none of them being superior or inferior to the others, that relation of superiority and subordination cannot then exist, and hence the world cannot originate. Should it, on the other hand, be maintained that even in the pralaya state there is a certain inequality, it would follow therefrom that creation is eternal.
Thus the Bhagavad-gîtâ says that actions are performed by the Guṇas and only he who is deluded by egoism thinks "I am the doer." And the Vishnu Purana objects to the use of personal pronouns.
For the same reason therefore we have to enclose in the meditation gunas mentioned in other Vedanta-texts; for being also connected with the meditation they subserve it in the same way. Here terminates the adhikarana of 'what is intimated by all Vedanta-texts. If it be said that there is difference on account of the text; we say no; on account of non-difference.
The origination of the jiva is, moreover, distinctly controverted in the books of the Bhagavatas also. Thus in the Parama-samhita 'The nature of Prakriti consists therein that she is non-sentient, for the sake of another, eternal, ever-changing, comprising within herself the three gunas and constituting the sphere of action and experience for all agents.
This Pradhana is constituted by the equipoise of the three gunas, and thus is a cause possessing a nature equal to that of its effect, i.e. the world; for the world is of the nature of pleasure, pain, and dullness, which consist of sattva, rajas, and tamas respectively. The case is analogous to that of a jar consisting of clay; of that also the cause is none other than the substance clay.
"These four stages have their correspondence in the eternal GUNAS or qualities of nature, TAMAS, RAJAS, and SATTVA: obstruction, activity, and expansion; or, mass, energy, and intelligence. Thus has nature marked every man with his caste, by the predominance in himself of one, or the mixture of two, of the GUNAS. Of course every human being has all three GUNAS in varying proportions.
In the same way the Pradhana, of whose essential nature it is to change, may, without being guided by another agent, abide in the interval between two creations in a state of homogeneousness, and then when the time for creation comes modify itself into many various effects due to the loss of equilibrium on the part of the gunas. In this way the Unevolved acts independently of anything else.
That the general cause can be found only in the unevolved Pradhana, which consists of the three gunas in a state of equipoise and is unlimited with regard to space as well as time, follows from the limitedness of the particular things, viz. the Mahat, the ahankara, and so on. These latter things are limited like jars and so on, and hence incapable of originating the entire world.
But, the text, 'The great one is merged in the Unevolved, the Unevolved is merged in the Imperishable, intimates that the Unevolved originates and again passes away; and similarly the Mahabharata says, 'from that there sprung the Non-evolved comprising the three gunas; the Non-evolved is merged in the indivisible Person. These texts, we reply, present no real difficulty.
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