tman_and_moksa

SR No.: 020053
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: G N Joshi
Publisher: Gujarat University
Publication Year: 1965
Total Pages: 901
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 12 MB

Page 488

Acharya Shri Kailashsagarsuri Gyanmandir
450
Atman and Moka
were the same or immortal it cannot be born and it cannot die. The words like 'birth' and 'death' cannot be applied to it. Samkara too admits the inadequacy of the words like 'birth' and 'death' and says that the words 'birth' and 'death' have reference to the conjunction with and separation from a body merely; he further quotes a statement from the Brh. Upanisad which says—“On being born that person assuming his body, etc., when he passes out (of the body) and dies, etc. (Bșh. Up. IV, 3.8)." Thus, there must be an enduring and abiding entity which remains eternal in the chain of successive births so that it would be the sufferer of pain, doer of actions, reaper of the rewards of actions and finally the attainer of liberation. The bound soul alone will be liberated. S'aṁkara thus, logically concludes the necessity of the soul's being imperishable by explaining the births of the individual souls due to the adjuncts with which it comes to be associated at various times.
There is only one Self for all and it is the unborn, undecaying, immortal and fearless Brahman itself. Samkara differs from all others in holding that the ultimate Reality is only one or unitary without a second (Advaita), and that the ultimate one Reality is the Brahman or the Ātman. The plurality of souls is unreal to the Supreme Self. The Brahman or the Supreme Self which is the soul of all, does not get itself modified into the individual
1 S'amkara (Com.) on Vedanta Sūtras. (Tr. Thibaut), 2.3.16. Vol. II, p. 29.
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