 | Some of the Ācāryas’ Commentaries
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| By now it should be apparent that Sanskrit words denoting absolute time are used in various ways. Indeed, the same is true in English, or for that matter any normal language. Such terms as “permanent,” “ever,” “always,” etc., literally indicate eternality, but they are constantly used to indicate entities, processes and situations that endure, within material time, for relatively or unusually long periods of time. We will have to take this into consideration in our attempt to properly understand the use of the word anādi in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. But before we do that, we will review Lord Kṛṣṇa’s discussion of the term nitya in the Eleventh Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.
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| We have already explained that words expressing absolute time tend to indicate very long material time when used in relation to objects, situations and processes found in the material world. Lord Kṛṣṇa tells us that this is also the case when speaking of the bondage of the jīva and the jīva’s liberation from that bondage.
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| In Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 11.10.37, Uddhava says to Lord Kṛṣṇa:
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| “The same, single entity is said to be eternally liberated and eternally conditioned. That is my confusion.”(103).
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| Uddhava’s confusion here is obvious: the words nitya-mukta and nitya-baddha mean, respectively,”eternally liberated” and “eternally bound.” Then, since nitya, “eternally,” means “without beginning or end,” how can a single person be liberated without beginning or end, and also bound without beginning or end? Taken literally, the terms nitya-mukta and nitya-baddha are logically incompatible. Lord Kṛṣṇa Himself will resolve this dilemma, namely, that śāstras such as Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam describe the same living being as both nitya-mukta and nitya-baddha. Thus Śrīdhara Svāmī comments on this verse:
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| “He [Uddhava] states: ‘Since liberation is brought about (at a particular time) and because this entails its not being eternal, would it be acceptable to call [a soul who achieves liberation] nitya-mukta? Therein lies my confusion.”(104).
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| In Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (11.11.1-3) Lord Kṛṣṇa answers Uddhava’s question about the eternality of both liberation and bondage for an embodied soul.
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| “The Supreme Lord said: The terms ‘bound’ and ‘liberated’ are an explanation from the modes of nature, not from real substance. Because māyā is the root of the modes [and I am the Lord of māyā], there is no liberation or bondage for Me.”(105).
(Bhāg. 11.11.1)
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| Śrīla Śrīdhara Svāmī comments on this verse in the following way:
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| “[Regarding] that which was spoken [by Uddhava:] ‘A single person alone is eternally liberated, eternally bound, [this is] my confusion,’ is that [statement] a contradiction in substance or in belief? Not the former, because bondage and liberation have no real substantiality. This is stated in two verses, beginning with the words baddho mukta iti. ‘The soul is bound and liberated not in substance but by the material modes; that is, by the designations of the modes of goodness, etc., which are dependent on Me.’
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| “One may raise the objection that even when [the bondage and liberation of the soul are based] on a condition of material designations, still there is substantiality [in this world] in activities such as cooking rice. How would that not be [the case]? In reply it is said,
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| “‘Because the modes of nature are based on māyā, there is no bondage. Therefore there is also no liberation.’
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| “One may then object: ‘How is something that contradicts all the śāstras being spoken?’ In reply it is said in this verse [by the Lord Himself]:
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| “‘That is My explanation,’ i.e., ‘Thus I have made My decision. Enough with these exceedingly bad arguments!’
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| “This is the meaning. Or it is also construed in this way:
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| “‘The soul is bound, liberated.’ This explanation, or statement, based on the modes of nature, [is coming] from a dependence on the modes, which come from Me.”
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| “In this case, the Lord states that He is separate from that, since He is personally the controller of the modes, being their cause. Thus [the Lord states:] ‘For Me there is neither bondage nor liberation.’ The rest [of the verse] is the same, [as explained above].”(106).
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| There are several important conclusions that we may draw here:
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| 1. Śrīdhara Svāmī contrasts vastu, substance, with pratīti, belief or opinion.
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| 2. He explains that Lord Kṛṣṇa resolves the conflict by saying that the very terms nitya-mukta and nitya-baddha exist in the realm of māyā. This is true in two senses: a) the condition described by these terms is a product of the modes of nature; b) the language itself is a product of māyā, since the Lord declares in this verse that māyā is the root of the modes.
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| 3. The conflict in language is resolved by saying that the language is not literal, but rather comes from the same illusory realm that it describes.
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| 4. Since the same person cannot be, literally, eternally liberated and eternally conditioned, it must follow that the words are being used in a nonliteral sense.
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| 5. In their book, the authors suggest that nitya means anādi when referring to material bondage. But that is also a non-literal interpretation, and it is not the one given by the Lord Himself, nor by Śrīdhara Svāmī in his commentary on the verses that directly deal with the logical contradiction entailed in the statement that the very same soul is nitya-baddha and nitya-mukta.
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| Lord Kṛṣṇa goes on to say:
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| "Grief, illusion, happiness, distress and accepting a material body are but perceptions caused by māyā, just like one’s perception of a dream. Material existence is not based on substance."(107)
(Bhāg. 11.11.2)
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| In his commentary on this verse, Śrīmān Vīrarāghava states:
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| "Thus having stated that there is for Him no karma-bandha, based on the three modes of nature, now, in the verse beginning with the word śoka, the Lord states that the jīva’s bondage in material existence (saṁsāra-bandha) is anitya, not eternal, because it is based on material designations."(108).
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| According to the authors, the ācāryas always use precise, literal language in their philosophical statements. Here Vīrarāghava says that the material bondage of the jīva is anitya. In the literal language scheme of the authors, that which is anitya has both a beginning and an end. So the statement that the jīva’s bondage is anitya thus contradicts the theory that the jīva’s bondage has no beginning.
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| Śrīdhara Svāmī comments on this verse:
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| "Because the modes of nature, existing as the cause, are themselves constituted of māyā, ‘illusion,’ so material existence is said to be māyā, being an effect of those modes. Thus [the Lord] elaborates in the verse beginning śoka-mohau. ‘Just like a dream of the soul’ in this verse (yathā svapna ātmanaḥ) means ‘like a [mere] perception, an illusion of one’s consciousness (buddhi)."(109)
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| Śrī Vaṁśīdhara explains this statement of Śrīdhara Svāmī as follows:
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| "The word vivarta [Śrīdhara Svāmī’s synonym for khyāti in the Bhāgavatam verse] means ‘that which has no true existence but rather exists otherwise [than it appears],’ [like the appearance of] silver in an oyster shell."(110)
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| Śrī Vaṁśīdhara then states: "In this verse, beginning with the word śoka, the Lord shows the falsity of the bound state of existence."
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| He goes on to explain that this illusion takes place because the conditioned soul falsely identifies with the illusory designations of one material body after the other. Śrī Vaṁśīdhara concludes:
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| "Therefore material existence (saṁsṛti), characterized by lamentation, illusion, etc., is not real, it is not true. And by the fact that lamentation, illusion, etc., are created by māyā, even if they actually exist, they are false because they are falsely imagined, due to ignorance, to have a relationship to the soul. This is the meaning."(112)
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| Lord Kṛṣṇa then states:
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| "O Uddhava, know that knowledge and ignorance are My expansions. Being created by māyā, they are primeval and perpetually award liberation and bondage to embodied beings."(113)
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| In his commentary on 11.11.1, Śrīdhara Svāmī raised the question of whether these two terms are contradictory “in substance,” vastutaḥ, or in terms of “mere belief or perception,” pratītitaḥ, concluding that the contradiction is not one of substance but is rather based on the illusory modes of material nature. Now, in his commentary on 11.11.3, he returns to that discussion:
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| "And so, first of all there is no contradiction of substance [in Lord Kṛṣṇa’s statement that the same living being is eternally conditioned and eternally liberated]. Rather, a belief, based on bodily designations, takes place."(114)
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| Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī repeats Śrīdhara Svāmī’s language in his own comments on verse 11.11.3:
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| "Although the living being is eternally liberated in substance, according to belief the soul is bound without beginning. Simultaneously both take place. This is the meaning."(115)
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| Śrī Vaṁśīdhara repeats Jīva Gosvāmī’s statement in his own commentary.
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| Madhva’s Ṭīkā to Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 11.11.7
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| To show even further the wide range of meanings for absolute terms like nitya-mukta and nitya-baddha when applied to a nonabsolute domain, we present the commentary of Śrīla Madhvācārya on verse 11.11.7. Here the great ācārya, quoting two śāstras, reveals his conclusion on this theological issue:
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| "Beginningless ignorance is blindness. If the jīva is qualified, and there is favorable endeavor, blindness surely has an end. Otherwise, blindness is simply perpetual. Humans and other conditioned souls are [generally] unqualified.
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| "As a rule, there is bondage for all jīvas, and it is certainly eternal. To be bound is to be dependent on Viṣṇu. Blindness is not to see that.
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| "Now, sometimes blindness will not be eternal. But even for the liberated soul there is bondage, for that is the control of the Lord. The term mukta should be [derived] from duḥkha-mokṣa, ‘liberation from suffering’. The term baddha [indicates] dependence on Hari. And so even nitya-baddha [eternally bound] souls are liberated because of their liberation from suffering. But the nitya-mukta is one alone: Hari, Nārāyaṇa, the Lord, because of His independence. Independence belongs to Him alone and no other.” (Quoted from the Mukta-viveka)(116)
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| Madhva here redefines baddhatvam, literally “boundness,” as being not an illusory state of bondage but simply one’s natural dependence on the Lord. The individual jīva by his constitutional nature is bound to serve the Lord. Similarly, in his Introduction to the Bhagavad-gītā As It Is, Śrīla Prabhupāda states that the living being by his very nature must always serve, and ultimately that service is under the authority of God.
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| What is normally called material bondage, Madhva calls “blindness,” andhatvam. His remarkable conclusion is that only the Lord is nitya-mukta,”eternally” liberated, since only the Lord is fully independent. According to Madhva’s use of language here, one who is dependent and thus bound to a superior cannot be free in the highest sense. That status is reserved for the Lord. Madhva reaffirms this by quoting a second text in the same commentary on 11.11.7:
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| "Without Hari, nothing is greater happiness than this. He alone, by Himself, is nitya-mukta, because He is always independent.” (Quoted from the Māhātmya)(117)
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| We can easily demonstrate that the special usage of nitya-mukta and nitya-baddha given by Madhva is precisely that—a special usage. Let us return briefly to the Bhāgavatam 2.5.19, in which Lord Brahmā states:
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| "These three modes of material nature, being further manifested as matter, knowledge and activities, put the eternally transcendental living entity under conditions of cause and effect and make him responsible for such activities."(118)
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| In this text of the Bhāgavatam, we find Lord Brahmā clearly stating that the real state of the soul is nityadā-mukta, or”eternally liberated.”
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| Śrīdhara Svāmī comments on this verse:
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| "[The modes] bind the jīva, the puruṣa who is māyin, i.e., whose object is māyā, although in substance he is always liberated."(119)
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| In his purport, Śrīla Prabhupāda says:
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| "Because they are between the internal and external potencies, the eternally transcendental living entities are called the marginal potency of the Lord. Factually, the living entities are not meant to be so conditioned by material energy, but due to their being affected by the false sense of lording it over the material energy, they come under the influence of such potency and thus become conditioned by the three modes of material nature. This external energy of the Lord covers up the pure knowledge of the living entity’s eternally existing with Him, but the covering is so constant that it appears that the conditioned soul is eternally ignorant."
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