The akartṛtva of prakṛti and Other Misconceptions in Bhoja’s Rājamārtaṇḍa Commentary to the Yogasūtra [DRAFT] (original) (raw)

Abstract

In the introduction to his Rājamārtaṇḍa commentary to the Yogasūtras, king Bhoja, the XI sec. philosopher Paramāra ruler, proudly vaunts the terseness and perspicuity of his commentatorial work in contradistinction to the practice of others who, as he remarks with some irony, are wont to obscure what is clear by much unnecessary philosophical prattle, whereas they quickly dispose of what is really in need of explanation with an easy spaṣṭam (“[the sense is] plain”). In reality, Bhoja’s commentary sometimes gives the impression of a certain shallowness as compared to the “standard” commentary going by the name of Vyāsa, and at places it even seems to betray a poor understanding of the root text, or indeed a faulty conception of its philosophical implications. After giving some relevant examples, the paper concentrates on one major instance, where at three different places (II, 6; III, 35; III, 55) Bhoja seems to deny the kartṛtva of prakṛti, contradicting the basic Sāṃkhya tenet, also shared by Yoga, which ascribes unconscious agency to Nature and idle consciousness to Spirit. The misconception is noticed also in the Kiraṇa subcommentary to the Rājamārtaṇḍa by Śrīkṛṣṇavallabhācārya, who tries to exhonerate Bhoja from blame, albeit with only partial success.

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