Prasthanatrayi Swaminarayan Bhashyam (Study)
by Sadhu Gyanananddas | 2021 | 123,778 words
This page relates ‘Insentiency and Sentiency’ of the study on the Prasthanatrayi Swaminarayan Bhashyam in Light of Swaminarayan Vachanamrut (Vacanamrita). His 18th-century teachings belong to Vedanta philosophy and were compiled as the Vacanamrita, revolving around the five ontological entities of Jiva, Ishvara, Maya, Aksharabrahman, and Parabrahman. Roughly 200 years later, Bhadreshdas composed a commentary (Bhasya) correlating the principles of Vachanamrut.
3.3. Insentiency and Sentiency
Māyā is fundamentally and eternally material. It is insentient (jaḍa), meaning it is without consciousness. It is not sentient (cetanā) like Parabrahman, Akṣarabrahman, īśvaras, and jīvas and entirely different from them. moreover, countless sentient beings (jīvas and īśvaras) lie dormant within māyā, therefore the term jadacidātmikā225 is used for māyā.
The Bhāṣyakāra echoes this fact in other words:
“jīveśvarātmānuliptāni...pralayāvasthayāmapi pralīnabhāvagatāni” (Brahmasūtra 2/1/36, p.186)
“Jīvas and īśvaras and their karmas are preserved in māyā even after final dissolution.”
All elements, physical and psychical evolve from māyā-prakṛti. They all are concrete and qualified. Māyā-prakṛti as such is an unconscious inert principle, nevertheless because of the entry of antaryāmi-ṣakti in it through the medium of a highly conscious principle called Mahāpuruṣa, it as if becomes conscious and functions like a sentient.