Sūtra 6.2.16 (How mokṣa is attained)

Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration, Word-for-word and English translation of Vaiśeṣika sūtra 6.2.16:

आत्मकर्मसु मोक्षो व्याख्यातः ॥ ६.२.१६ ॥

ātmakarmasu mokṣo vyākhyātaḥ || 6.2.16 ||

ātma-karmasu—actions of the soul taking place; Mokṣaḥ. salvation. vyākhyātaḥ—declared.

16. (It has been) declared that the actions of the soul taking place, salvation (results).

Commentary: The Upaskāra of Śaṅkara Miśra:

(English rendering of Śaṅkara Miśra’s commentary called Upaskāra from the 15th century)

To ascertain, therefore, what moksa is, in which there is an end of this re-appearance after passing away, of the system of births and deaths, he says:

[Read sūtra 6.2.16 above]

This same disjunction of body and mind rises into mokṣa or liberation, when there exist the actions of the soul. This is the meaning. Now, the actions of the soul collectively are as follows: ‘audition,’ intellection, practice of holy communion, or yoga, constant meditation, posture, regulation of breath, (lit. lengthening of life, the acquisition of the control of the external senses and of the control of the internal sense, spiritual intuition of one’s own soul and of the souls of others, accurate knowledge of previously produced dharma and adharma, which have to be experienced in other bodies and places the building up of various bodies suitable to such experience, the exhaustion of that dharma and adharma by experiencing them, and ultimate success or emancipation, characterised as cessation of pain, on the cessation of bi; h, when there is cessation of tendency to action, in consequence of the non-production of subsequent dharma and adharma, due to the overcoming of the mists of faults characterised as desire and aversion. Of these the prime action of the soul is knowledge of the real nature or essence of the six Predicables.—16.

Here ends the second chapter of the sixth book in the Commentary of Śaṅkara upon the Vaiśeṣika Aphorisms.

Commentary: The Vivṛti of Jayanārāyaṇa:

(English extracts of Jayanārāyaṇa Tarkapañcānana’s Vivṛti or ‘gloss’ called the Kaṇādasūtravivṛti from the 17th century)

Spiritual intuition of the reality of the self steals away false knowledge, sprung from spiritual blindness, of which the subject-matter is that the soul is not distinct from the body, etc. Thereupon there is cessation of faults, characterised as desire and aversion; from which there follows destruction of activity or inclination productive of dharma and adharma. And from the non-existence of inclination results annihilation of birth in the form of the initial conjunction of life with a future body. And hence there results final annihilation of the threefold afflictions. It is in this that mokṣa consists. Therefore this treatise is useful, as a system of thought intended for the purpose of intellection or thinking about things.