Liberation Without Annihilation: Pārthasārathi Miśra on Jñānaśakti

The problem is simply put, for all that it concerns the ultimate end, and therefore the intellectual focus and religious goal of classical Indian thought.If there is liberation for the self (iitman), and it consists in freedom from all the conditions of bondage starting with body, then since awareness-occurrent through the sensory apparatus of the body -is part of that bondage, it too must go; but then, how is liberation different from the annihilation of that self?This is the particular problem that the 11th-century Bhana Mima:rp.saka,Parthasarathi Misra, attempts to tackle in his interpretation ofKumarila Bhatta's original, austere view ofliberation in the Slokaviirttika.I want in these few pages to focus sharply on his suggestion as to how the self's state in liberation must be understood without according any awareness to it.