Jivanmuktiviveka (Liberation in Life) of Vidyaranya (An Old and Rare Book)

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THE Jivanmuktiviveka or The Path to Liberation in life is a well-known book, unique in the favour it finds with the samnyasins of India, and a compilation from several scriptural works by the great scholar Vidyaranya. He is known to have written on almost every important branch of literature, in his time, with such grasp and finish as would surprise the most accurate writer of the present day. He lived in the fourteenth century. He was the Prime Minister of the King of Vijayanagara-Bukka Raya to whom he dedicated his best work, the Vedabhasya-the elaborate scholia on the Veda. Sayaņa, the minister, became, in after life, Vidyaranya, the samnyasin. He apparently compiled this work after he renounced all concern with the world. His life, spent in the midst of varied activity at the court of Bukka Raya, had its culmination in the quiet bliss of supreme spiritual exaltation. Vidyaranya is indeed an illustrious example of the true brahmana and his very life nobly illustrates the truth of his teaching. Verily it may be said of him that he found Liberation in life', and 'The Path' he points out to us in this work is, no doubt, the surest road to eternal peace and happiness, while yet we live in the world.

Though in the body of the work will be found some of the richest gems of purest ray serene gathered from several authentic works on which the ancient Hindu philosophy and culture is based, they would be simply lifeless without the living nexus supplied by the sage, Vidyaranya. The author, himself a samnyasin, begins and ends his book with the technical inquiry-whether renunciation (samnyasa) is the sine qua non of liberation or not-and answers it. The path to liberation, according to Vidyaranya, is indicated in one word-renunciation. Though this word has received a number of different shades of meaning from several writers, old and new, Vidyaranya would not understand it in any but the formal orthodox sense in which the Rși-s of yore (Hindu seers) principally employed it. Have no concern, bodily or mental, direct or indirect, with the world, live in entire isolation, so to speak, and wear the orthodox insignia of the order this is samnyasa, according to Vidyāranya. He divides renunciation into two kinds. The one he calls the renunciation of the seeker, the other, the renunciation of the knower. The first is, in fact, a preliminary stage to the second. One may apply oneself to the study, reflection, and assimilation of the Vedanta, with or without the first kind of renunciation. But with the dawning of the Light, renunciation of the second kind must surely follow. The first, if at all it comes about, must be sought after in the orthodox fashion; the second is bound by no injunction or prohibition'.