History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c95.349.1

v7.c95.349.1

The author Acyutarāya states that the work really means ‘Prārabdha-vāda-dhvāntasamhṛti’ (destruction of the darkness caused by the doctrine of prārabdha) and that all that he wants is to combat the false idea that all human acts from the moment of conception to death are governed by past deeds alone to the exclusion of everything else. He postulates that all human activity is due to *prārabdha*, to *samskāras* (sub-conscious or latent impressions or tendencies) and *prayatna* (human effort). He explains: the moment after the body dies, all the accumulated good and bad deeds set in motion by God become ready to yield their retribution (results) and that a good or evil deed (or both) that is strongest begins a suitable body. The birth is that of a brāhmaṇa or the rest when there is mixed good and evil as the strongest karma, as a lower animal when sin is strongest, as a godly birth when a good deed is strongest. The duration of life may be 100 years, less or more, and *bhoga* means experiencing pleasure or pain that is regarded as favourable or unfavourable.²⁵⁹² Then he launches on the discussion of pleasure (*sukha*) as threefold, viz illusory (*prātibhāsika*), actual (*vyāvahārika*) or actual due to illusory pleasure. Pleasure is again *ramya* (beautiful) and *priya* (dear or liked). These two are not synonymous, since gold would appear beautiful to an ascetic but it is not dear to him. Then he divides what is *priya* into three kinds (or degrees).