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Slogam 22

Slogam
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Bhagavad Gita Chapter 13.22

puruṣaḥ prakṛti-stho hi

bhuńkte prakṛti-jān guṇān

kāraṇaḿ guṇa-sańgo ’sya

sad-asad-yoni-janmasu

Translation

The living entity in material nature thus follows the ways of life, enjoying the three modes of nature. This is due to his association with that material nature. Thus he meets with good and evil among various species.

Author Name:-Sri Ramanuja

Purport

Sri Ramanuja

13.22 The self, settled in a series of bodies of divinities, men etc., which are modifications of Prakrti, becomes attached to happiness, pain etc., resulting from the Sattva and other qualities associated with the respective wombs, and hence engages Itself in virtuous and sinful deeds, constituting the means for happiness, misery etc. In order to experience the fruits of those good and evil deeds, It is born again in good and evil wombs. Then It becomes active and consequently is born again as a result of Its activities. As long as It does not cultivate qualities like modesty etc., which are the means for realising the self, so long Its entanglement in Samsara continues like this. Thus, it has been declared here that attachment causes births in good and evil wombs.

Author Name:-Sri Adi Shankaracharya

Purport

Sri Adi Shankaracharya

13.22 Hi, since; purusah, the soul, the experiencer; is prakrtisthah, seated in Nature, which is characterized as ignorance and gets transformed into body and organs, i.e., (since the soul) has become identified with Nature; therefore, bhunkte, [Bhunkte, lit. enjoys, here means ‘experiences’.-Tr.] it enjoys, i.e. experiences; gunan, the qualities-manifest as happiness, sorrow and delusion; prakrtijan, born of Nature, thinking thus, ‘I am happy, sorrowful, deluded, learned.’ Even though ignorance continues as a cause, still the main cause of worldly existence, of birth, is the contact, the self-identification, with the qualities-happiness,sorrow, and delusion-when they are experienced, as is affirmed by the Upanisadic text, ‘What it desires, it resolves’ (Br. 4.4.5) [See Sankaracarya’s Comm. on this.-Tr.]. That very fact is stated here: Gunasangah, contact with the qualities; is karanam, the cause; asya, of its, the soul’s, the experiencer’s; sad-asad-yoni-janmasu, births in good and evil wombs. Self-identification with the qualities is the cause of the experience of births in good and evil wombs. Or the meaning is, ‘Self-identification with the qualities is the cause or its worldly existence through birth in good and evil wombs,’ where the words ‘of worldly existence’ have to be supplied. The good wombs are he wombs of gods and others; evil wombs are the wombs of gods and others; evil wombs are the wombs of beasts etc. From the force of the context it is to be understood that there is no contradiction in including even human wombs among ‘good and evil wombs’. It amounts to saying that ignorance-called ‘being seated in Nature’-and the contact with. i.e. the desire for, the qualities are the causes of worldly existence. And this is said so that they can be avoided. And in the scripture Gita it is a well-known fact that knowledge and dispassion, accompanied with renunciation, are the causes of removing this (ignorance and self-identification with the qualities). That knowledge about the field and the Knower of the field, too, has been presented earlier. This has also been said in, ‘…by realizing which one attains Immortality’ (12), etc., through the process of refutation of elements alien (to the Self) and superimposition of qualities belonging to others (that are not the Self). [Verse 12 deals with the refutation of alien elements, and vere 13 with the superimposition of qualities belonging to others.] A direct presentation is again being made of that (knowledge) itself:

Author Name:-Sri Madhvacharya

Purport

Sri Madhvacharya

Here the word Purusa should be understood to refer to the jiva or embodied living entities. In previous verses both the Supreme Lord and the jivas have been referred to as Purusa. Hence this clarification is required to understand this verse in the proper context. Thus the jiva enjoys the attributes of prakriti or the material substratum pervading physical existence. This statement by the Supreme Lord Krishna effectively eradicates the arguments of those whose conjecture is that the relationship of the physical body and its organs of the senses interacting with sense objects as instruments of action are illusory. The word hi meaning certainly is used to emphasise that the conjecture of illusion in this case is contrary to actual experience. It has never been observed by the greatest of minds that internal experiences knowledge and ignorance, pleasure and pain are the products of delusion. That these are illusory is unacceptable to both the spiritual mind and the rational mind. Only those minds which are preoccupied with the external concerns of the physical body are susceptible to illusion; but never those who are devoted to atma tattva or knowledge of the immortal soul and the divine internal spiritual experience. It should be pointed out that even external conceptions should only be considered illusory when discrimination is accurately used in verification. If it ever were established that the internal consciousness perfectly perceived by those who are self-realised as eternal are illusory then all that has been collaborated and confirmed by the imperishable Vedic scriptures would also have to be considered illusory and that is impossible as they are the only authorised and verifiable proof in all of creation and anything whatsoever contrary to the Vedic scriptures is absolutely illusory. It must be understood that illusion is only present in the empirical world of material existence. Thus any proof that could be given must also be empirical and thus determining whether anything is illusory in absence of any contrary evidence must be determined exclusively by the conclusions of the Vedic scriptures.

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Slogam 22

Bhagavad Gita Chapter 13.22

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