Prasthanatrayi Swaminarayan Bhashyam (Study)
by Sadhu Gyanananddas | 2021 | 123,778 words
This page relates ‘Power of Parabrahman’ 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.
3.6. Power of Parabrahman
As we elucidated that māyā is an insentient entity. While māyā is the basic raw material of the universe. Parabrahman creates the world using māyā as a raw material. Māyā is described as the power of Parabrahman or the means by which He creates. For Parabrahman, māyā is a tool or means for his creative ends. This should not, however, be confused as implying māyā to be an inherent quality or consort of Parabrahman; his nature in no way entertains māyā nor is he affiliated to it in person. Svāminārāyaṇa explains elaborately in Vacanāmṛta Gadhadā I/13, where he describes that Kāla (time) and māyā are Akṣarabrahman and Parabrahman’s powers.
The Bhāṣyakāra also states:
“paramātmādhīnā tacchaktirūpā prapañcopādānatayā daivī devādhidevena paramātmanādhiṣṭhitvād daivī māyā” (Bhagavad-Gītā 7/14, p.163)
“Māyā is indeed Parabrahman’s power consisting of three guṇas or moods of mind is called Daivī as well.”
As Svāminārāyaṇa frequently uses, ‘Parabrahman’s māyā’[1] to clear the fact.
Footnotes and references:
[1]:
Vacanāmṛta Gadhadā I/34, Pan.3, Gadh. 2/65