Works on (Puruṣārtha) पुरुषार्थ

[हर्षवर्धनः Harsha Wardhan]

Pranam to all

Are there any works (ancient or modern) that specifically are on the topic of पुरुषार्थ?

I see references to पुरुषार्थ in the epics (Ramayana, MBh) and the Puranas, but has this topic been treated at length by any scholar or commentator in the past or recently?

Any inputs would be much appreciated.

kind regards

Harsha

[Vishal Agarwal]

Among traditional compilations:

Sayanacharya's compilation 'Purusarthasudhanidhi' ed by T Chandrasekharana. Madras Government Oriental Manuscript Series No. 39 (1955)

Vishnu Bhatta (s/o Ramakrishnabhatta), Purusarthachintamani, published in 1927 by Nirnayasagar Press 

Chaturvargasamgraha by Kshemendra, Hamsa Prakashan (Jaipur) published in 2004 with a Hindi translation

Sayana's work is based in the Puranic narratives.

As for modern works:

Chakrabarti, Samiran Chandra. 2000. The Concept of Purusārthas. Maharshi Sandipani Rashtriya Ved Vidya Pratishthan: Ujjain

Danielou, Alain. 1993. Virtue, Success, Pleasure and Liberation – The Four Aims of Life in the Tradition of India. Inner Traditions International. Rochester (Vermont, USA)

Mehta, J. M. 2006. Four Objectives of Human Life. Pustak Mahal: Delhi

Prasad, Rajendra. 2008. A Conceptual-Analytic Study of Classical Indian Philosophy of Morals. Center for Studies in Civilizations (Concept Publishing Company): New Delhi

Stryker, Rod. 2011. The Four Desires. Delacorte Press: New York

Tripathi, Premvallabh. Purushārtha-Chatushtaya. Anandakaanana Press: Varanasi (in Hindi and Sanskrit)

I used the attached compilation that I wrote several years back for my own teaching purposes. It might not meet the 'scholarly' criteria but serves its intended pedagogical purpose well.

Regards,

Vishal Agarwal

________________

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "भारतीयविद्वत्परिषत्" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to bvparishat+...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to bvpar...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/bvparishat/c5bdfc0a-821a-4e88-82bb-faf4c492a18c%40googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[हर्षवर्धनः Harsha Wardhan]

Many thanks for the excellent inputs, Vishal ji.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to bvpar...@googlegroups.com.

[K S Kannan]

One of the many excellent contributions by Vishal Agarwal !

The biblio is also very useful.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to bvparishat+...@googlegroups.com.

To post to this group, send email to bvpar...@googlegroups.com.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/bvparishat/0ef97db4-4631-4f2a-94a9-cf46e5e1272d%40googlegroups.com.

For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--

Dr. K.S.Kannan  D.Litt.

Chair Professor, IIT-Madras.

Academic Director, Swadeshi Indology.

Nominated Member, IIAS, Shimla.

Member, BoS, Chinmaya University.

Member, BoS, University of Hyderabad.

Former Professor, CAHC, Jain University, Bangalore.

Former Director, Karnataka Samskrit University, Bangalore.

Former Principal, Evening College, Samskrit University, Bangalore.

Former Head, Dept. of Sanskrit, The National Colleges, Bangalore.

[Trichur Rukmani]

Arvind Sharma has a book especially dealing with this topic if I recollect correctly.

om

--

[K S Kannan]

Yes, A. Sharma has  a 34-page article in the Journal of Religious Ethics (1999)

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/bvparishat/CAKViH2En3MNZeE69Pw-Hu6n7DUBX6Vbwi-GL2QhMaWsZFyq2Lg%40mail.gmail.com.

For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[हर्षवर्धनः Harsha Wardhan]

Vishal ji, 

Pls allow me to congratulate you on the beautiful write-up on Purusārtha that you have kindly shared. It is an outstanding summation of the framework.

kind regards

Harsha

On Saturday, 29 June 2019 08:49:27 UTC+5:30, Vishal Agarwal wrote:

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to bvpar...@googlegroups.com.

[हर्षवर्धनः Harsha Wardhan]

Thank you madam

On Saturday, 29 June 2019 10:46:23 UTC+5:30, trichurrukmani09 wrote:

Arvind Sharma has a book especially dealing with this topic if I recollect correctly.

om

On Sat, Jun 29, 2019 at 1:01 AM हर्षवर्धनः Harsha Wardhan <placidus...@gmail.com> wrote:

Pranam to all

Are there any works (ancient or modern) that specifically are on the topic of पुरुषार्थ?

I see references to पुरुषार्थ in the epics (Ramayana, MBh) and the Puranas, but has this topic been treated at length by any scholar or commentator in the past or recently?

Any inputs would be much appreciated.

kind regards

Harsha

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "भारतीयविद्वत्परिषत्" group.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to bvpar...@googlegroups.com.

[हर्षवर्धनः Harsha Wardhan]

Pranam to all,

I have always harboured a suspicion that the original purushartha was not chaturvarga but trivarga (dharma, artha and kama). Moksha, in my view, was tagged later on to the framework. Perhaps, even a buddhist influence is discernible, prima facie.

I have not been able to trace this point easily, and I am not sure if this is even the right one.

Any guidance or inputs on this point would be very helpful for me and gratefully received.

kind regards

Harsha

On Saturday, 29 June 2019 08:49:27 UTC+5:30, Vishal Agarwal wrote:

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to bvpar...@googlegroups.com.

[Sivasenani Nori]

Harsha Wardha garu

What, pray, are the grounds for such suspicion? I know that you are only exploring and have not arrived at a conclusion, but what could be the trigger for such a thought? 

One, I see, could be the thought that Upanishad were compiled as a reaction to Buddhism. They are the Moksha Sastra and therefore the very purushartha was due to Buddhism. However, even without contending the paurusheyatva of Upansihads (not proven till now by those who propose human authorship), there is no basis for contemporaneity of Buddhism and Upansihads beyond speculation and an almost childish guess along the lines of "the change in language must have taken about 200 years" (No systematic study of the so-called language changes was done to prove that guess even after 150 years). 

Are there other triggers? 

Regards 

Senani 

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to bvparishat+...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/bvparishat/e34f80b9-ffd7-4996-bd9d-1204f29137fe%40googlegroups.com.

[हर्षवर्धनः Harsha Wardhan]

Sri Sivasenani garu,

There are several triggers. Before I come to them, just a word on Buddhism, which I referenced not to bring in chronology but to highlight the emphasis being given to the idea of moksha (/nirvana). I think Buddhism gives undue importance to moksha (which in itself is a deviation from what the Buddha has intended, but that is a different matter), and this has influenced the mainstream thought somewhat. That the Upanishads are moksha-related is one way of putting it (and rightly so), but in my view the better way of putting it is to say that that they are the knowledge-portions of the Vedas. Yes, I am bring in the old karma kanda -jnana kanda bifurcation, which I think is very apt. As an illustration, if we see the Suka-Vyasa dialogue in the Mahabharata on the basis of this point, the discussion that ensued owes its lucidity to this clear demarcation, which brings in a balance.

Before we proceed, a word on my own viewpoint. I do not give importance to dates, I try to concentrate on ideas and their germs. Dates are useful to me only for the purpose of tracing the trajectory of ideas, nothing more. It is my conviction that many seemingly modern ideas are quite old in their origins, and therefore, to pre-categorize or reject or accept ideas on the basis of chronology is improper. I understand this stand of mine is at variance with accepted scholarship, but I am not an academician, and I belabor under no obligation to be 100% unassailable in my arguments, or 100% meticulous in my references and citations. A clear, reasonable hint or a strong sense is enough for my purposes, which is simply utilitarian: to clarify things for my own self, not to convince any academic peers or trump rivals. 

With this, the response proper. Of late I am studying the Vedas, and the overall sense I am getting here is that the Vedas (I am including the Upanishads here, pls note) are rather harmonious in their import, more life-affirming than life-denying. To put it in the old karma terminology, it is the balancing of the pravritti and nivritti paths. It is my opinion that the purushartha framework is an outgrowth of this recognition by someone sometime in the past. 

Further, I also think that the development of the original purushartha framework went somewhat like this: 

kAma -- artha -- dharma

where, dharma (1) includes in its ambit all that yoga (or the nivritti path) designates/prescribes in addition to the usual, and (2) is itself a further development of the idea of rta (/satya)

So, the original framework in my view must have been 

kAma -- artha  -- satya/rta

The reasoning that appeals to me in this regard is this: 

It is clear to me that the Vedas (cf BrhadAranyaka, for e.g.) recognize desire (kAma) as the principal, central outgrowth of brahman in its creative aspect. That is the central mainspring of all life activity. kAma is even said to be what the being is. The question then comes, how to go about dealing with kAma, and the answer that is provided brings out the concept of means (artha), in the sense of resources. End is kAma, means is artha. Artha is for kAma. What kind of artha? Proper artha. 'Proper' is rta, satya, what we now understand as dharma. It is from this that the modern framework of dharma--artha--kama, in that order, comes.

What about moksha? kAma can be dealt with in two ways: one, thru the path of satisfaction (pravritti), the other, thru the path of extinguishment (nivritti). Moksha is the way or path of extinguishing kAma. Moksha need not be a separate category, it can very well be understood as another mode of proper or appropriate artha. Proper and appropriate implies dharma.

I have said moksha is included within dharma. I think this inclusion was well-understood in ancient times. In the Ramayana, Rama advises Bharata to judiciously allocate time and attention to pursing artha, kama and dharma properly. There is no mention of moksha separately. It is understood. In the Mahabharata, Sri Krishna devotes his early mornings to yogadhyAna. Was he a samnyAsi? No. Then why was he meditating on Brahman? Because it was his dharma, that's why. In the Mahabharata, despite the massive moksha dharma parva portions (which I think were added later, and with good cause, as the MbH had become some sort of the national encyclopedia of India), the idea of moksha is not disproportionately highlighted. Take the BhArata sAvitri for example, considered the essence of the MbH. Dharma is projected as the paramount objective of man, his principal consideration, for it ensures the proper pursuit of the rest. Moksha is not mentioned separately. It is understood. 

Of course, here, I am simplistically representing things. I am not talking about the relevance of varNa, Asrama, etc in the above discussions. But that does not detract from the main point for me, which is that the trivarga framework is sufficient to cover human pursuits properly, both in the pravritti or nivritti aspects. The Upanishads, the Jnana-kanda of the Vedas, are not something separate; they form an integral part of the whole Vedas, which must be seen from a "gestalt" perspective to understand purushartha.

Take Samkhya and Yoga, the oldest darshanas, which have taken a severe beating from Vedanta, because they strayed away, in their later avatars, from Sruti-s. I think there are several profound truths in these systems. Take the concept of apavarga, literally 'beyond the vargas'. This is the idea of Moksha. Apavarga is not a separate varga by itself, just a handy name for the idea of mukti, moksha, kaivalya. 

An objection may be made that the idea of moksha/apavarga/mukti/kaivalya etc merits mention as a separate category by itself because it is a legitimate objective of human pursuit, of human work, of human activity, of karma. I say that it is clear that karma is the basis of everything. Nothing can be done or achieved without activity, without karma. Knowledge/Jnana bestows liberation, yes, but it cannot do that on its own. Knowledge is the root and fruit of action, jnana is more important than karma, but jnana is not the only thing there is. There is karma, always and everywhere. Given that, there is nothing special about doing karma for moksha. It is understood as artha-work only. No separate category needed.

I believe that this line of thought got clouded a bit sometime in the past, by the advent of Jnana-based systems (late sAmkhya, yes, it is jnana-focused cf. BG), vedanta family (Adi Sankara highlighted Jnana very much, perhaps excessively), and of course, Buddhism (/Jainism). What happened, perhaps inadvertently, is that as darshanas became more and more refined, these Jnana-based systems came to be seen as Jnana-only systems. Taking this + the Ashrama concept, tagging a final category of Moksha to the Purushartha framework began to appeal to people. Trivarga became chaturvarga.

What clinches the issue for me is that the more we go into principal sources, the more the idea of trivarga (with dharma+) emerges. That is a strong factor for my suspicion. 

Now, all this is the prattling of a dabbler. I have made a loose argument, not rigorous. Perhaps I have seen things with prejudiced eyes. Perhaps I have an innate (to me) bias. There are things I don't know I don't know.

But I sincerely think, at this stage, that the central idea has merit. My question is: am I right, or wrong? And to what extent?

Kindly let me know if all this makes sense to you.

with kind regards

Harsha

Senani 

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to bvpar...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/bvparishat/e34f80b9-ffd7-4996-bd9d-1204f29137fe%40googlegroups.com.

[Sivasenani Nori]

Harsha Wardhan garu

I understand where you are coming from. Let me offer a few remarks based on my understanding. 

I am a conservative in the sense that my first preference is the traditional explanation; only when the traditional explanation does not hold in the face of new facts or arguments, should an alternative be considered. Why? Siddhanta positions are arrived at after a lot of deliberation, discussion and argumentation and the participants, by all accounts we have, are very sharp and not inferior to the present-day participants.

In this case the traditional explanation is like this. Only trivarga is the subject matter of almost all activities of life, because the maximum part of life is spent in the first three ashramas. For example vivaha mantras include only 'धर्मे नातिचरामि, अर्थे नातिचरामि, कामे नातिचरामि, ' not moksha. The very name of Upanishads, rahasyam (secret), substantiates that. Then, it is no surprise we mostly find discussion of dharma, artha and kama only in literature. 

All the darshanas on the other hand clearly mention moksha as their objective - though the name used might differ. 

It is reasonable to assume that Buddhism took the concepts of sanatana dharma (damaa, karma, nibbana, dhyana, indriya nigraha etc.) and tried to establish them without having to admit the validity of Vedas, as it clearly is a reaction to Sanatana Dharma. So the main contribution of Buddhism is to the analytical method. Pre-Buddhism, we see more of conclusions; post-Buddhism, we see more of reasoning to support the conclusions, a systematic treatment of the subject etc. 

One more point to consider is that any original contribution would have been celebrated and well-documented. Let us take an example - when Islam supplanted the polytheism of Arabs, the contributions of Islam, namely one God and single brotherhood, are celebrated and well-documented. In what little I have read of Buddhism, the key difference seems to be not so much in the way of life but that the same kind of life can be continued (just ponder: in what way are the practical aspects of Buddhism different from Sanatana Dharma? Say, the ashTaangamaarga or the aaryasatyaani) without the need to believe in God or Vedas, not that Buddhism gives one nirvana whereas the Sanatana Dharma would trap one in an eternal cycle of birth and death. 

Regards 

Senani

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to bvparishat+...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/bvparishat/161f5acd-96ed-46f3-9ef0-4089f29cdc0a%40googlegroups.com.

[vasudeva dharmadhikari]

Pranams to All,

One of our Research Scholars at  The Kuppu Swami  Sastri Research Institute , Mylapore, will be submitting her thesis on Purusarthasudhanidhi of Sayanacarya shortly.

Regards

Vasudeva

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to bvparishat+...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/bvparishat/161f5acd-96ed-46f3-9ef0-4089f29cdc0a%40googlegroups.com.