Asraya

Āśraya (Sanskrit: आश्रय) variously means – base, source, assistance, shelter, protection, refuge, dependence, having recourse to or depending on. In terms of Hindu philosophy, the living entity or Jiva is āśraya, and Brahman or the Supreme Being, the Godhead, is viśaya, the supreme objective, the goal of life Bhagavata Purana (VII.x.6). But, this word - āśraya conveying the primary meaning – 'refuge', immediately relates with the deity which is worshipped rather than with the abstract Brahman, the substratum of all that exists.

Vishishtadvaita Vedanta, which promotes qualified-monism, holds the belief that Jiva is anu or monadic in substance. Jiva though infinitesimal, is the individual atman harboured by a body, which atman the Mundaka Upanishad tells us, to be known by the mind is capable of becoming infinite through its attributive knowledge. Jiva is kartā and bhoktā, both; it is the āśraya for jñāna, the substrate for krti or prayatna (effort) caused by the desire to act. Therefore, Jiva is the āśraya for the states of experience that invariably involve changes in mental disposition without affecting the Jiva.

Shankara does not consider avidyā (ignorance) as something positively existent, he does not speak about its vikśepa-śakti (power of dispersion) or avarna-sakti (power of concealment); he does not raise avidyā to an eternal metaphysical entity. Shankara also does not subscribe to the view that the individual soul is the bearer of avidyā (āśraya) or to the contention that the Paramatman is the āśraya of avidyā as is held by Mandana and Vācaspati. He reiterates that for an awakened person there is no avidyā to delude and cause pain or pleasure. In the context of the origin of the world (the original state is called avyakta) he terms Parameswara-Brahman as the āśraya of nāmarūpe (the physical presence which name manifests) and that Brahman is the āspada (locus) of the cosmic vyavahāra imagined by avidya.

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