Paradoksy w Dźiwy Goswamina koncepcji duszy, drogi do doskonałości oraz wyzwolenia

Paradoxes in Jīva Gosvāmi’s concept of the soul, path to perfection and liberationThis article is devoted to the role and significance of paradoxes in the philosophical thought and mysticism of the sixteenth-century Bengali Vaishnava theologian Jīva Gosvāmi. He situates his system within the Vedanta school, where the main category distinguishing its branches and deciding on their specific character is the relation between the Absolute, the phenomenal world and the human being. In Gosvāmi’s school, this relation involves identity and distinctness (bhedābheda) of those categories at the same time, referred to by the word acintya (“inaccessible to reason”), which further stresses this ontological paradox. Although doctrinally the most important, it is not the only paradox in Gosvami’s thought. Adopting this core metaphysical thesis engendered many other aporias, including those concerning the nature of the soul, the concept of bhakti (loving devotion to a deity) and the idea of liberation (mukti), which Goswami then attempts to solve in his most important philosophical treatise – Ṣaṭsandarbha.