Puranic Encyclopaedia: A Comprehensive Dictionary with Special Reference to the Epic and Puranic Literature c7.1540

c7.1540

The Jīvātmā or the Aparabrahman is without beginning. Even the past which is beyond our thinking crores and crores of Jīvātmāns had got into individuals and when the Annamayakośas of the individuals decayed due to death, they abandoned them and entered into new individuals. The author of the Bṛhadāraṇyaka gives an explanation to the question why this Jīvātmā which is as free as air enters the body of man, beast, bird, tree, rock etc. and subjects itself to misery and hardship. “Where does the Jīvātmā originate from? how does it enter this body?” Jīvātmā originates from Paramātmā (the soul of the universe). As the shadow pervades the body of a man this Jīvātmā overshadows this body.” Śrī Śaṅkarācārya expounds it in another way; he says that the Jīvātmā is tied to the body by the imagination or desires of the mind.