VEDÂNTA-SÛTRAS WITH THE
COMMENTARY BY SANKARÂKÂRYA.
(Brahma Sutras)
translated by George Thibaut
First Adhyaya
FOURTH PÂDA.
REVERENCE TO THE HIGHEST SELF!
1. If it be said that some (mention) that which is based on inference (i.e. the pradhâna); we deny this, because (the term alluded to) refers to what is contained in the simile of the body (i.e. the body itself); and (that the text) shows.In the preceding part of this work--as whose topic there has been set forth an enquiry into Brahman--we have at first defined Brahman (I, 1, 2); we have thereupon refuted the objection that that definition applies to the pradhâna also, by showing that there is no scriptural authority for the latter (I, 1, 5), and we have shown in detail that the common purport of all Vedânta-texts is to set forth the doctrine that Brahman, and not the pradhâna, is the cause of the world. Here, however, the Sânkhya again raises an objection which he considers not to have been finally disposed of.
It has not, he says, been satisfactorily proved that there is no scriptural authority for the pradhâna; for some sâkhâs contain expressions which seem to convey the idea of the pradhâna. From this it follows that Kapila and other supreme rishis maintain the doctrine of the pradhâna being the general cause only because it is based on the Veda.--As long therefore as it has not been proved that those passages to which the Sânkhyas refer have a different meaning (i.e. do not allude to the pradhâna), all our previous argumentation as to the omniscient Brahman being the cause of the world must be considered as unsettled. We therefore now begin a new chapter which aims at proving that those passages actually have a different meaning.
The Sânkhyas maintain that that also which is based on inference, i.e. the pradhâna, is perceived in the text of some sâkhâs. We read, for instance, they say, in the Kâthaka (I, 3, 11), 'Beyond the Great there is the Undeveloped,
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beyond the Undeveloped there is the Person.' There we recognise, named by the same names and enumerated in the same order, the three entities with which we are acquainted from the Sânkhya-smriti, viz. the great principle, the Undeveloped (the pradhâna), and the soul 1. That by the Undeveloped is meant the pradhâna is to be concluded from the common use of Smriti and from the etymological interpretation of which the word admits, the pradhâna being called undeveloped because it is devoid of sound and other qualities. It cannot therefore be asserted that there is no scriptural authority for the pradhâna. And this pradhâna vouched for by Scripture we declare to be the cause of the world, on the ground of Scripture, Smriti, and ratiocination.
Your reasoning, we reply, is not valid. The passage from the Kâthaka quoted by you intimates by no means the existence of that great principle and that Undeveloped which are known from the Sânkhya-smriti. We do not recognise there the pradhâna of the Sânkhyas, i.e. an independent general cause consisting of three constituting elements; we merely recognise the word 'Undeveloped,' which does not denote any particular determined thing, but may--owing to its etymological meaning, 'that which is not developed, not manifest'--denote anything subtle and difficult to distinguish. The Sânkhyas indeed give to the word a settled meaning, as they apply it to the pradhâna; but then that meaning is valid for their system only, and has no force in the determination of the sense of the Veda. Nor does mere equality of position prove equality of being, unless the latter be recognised independently. None but a fool would think a cow to be a horse because he sees it tied in the usual place of a horse. We, moreover, conclude, on the strength of the general subject-matter, that the passage does not refer to the pradhâna the fiction of the Sânkhyas, 'on account of there being referred
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to that which is contained in the simile of the body.' This means that the body which is mentioned in the simile of the chariot is here referred to as the Undeveloped. We infer this from the general subject-matter of the passage and from the circumstance of nothing else remaining.--The immediately preceding part of the chapter exhibits the simile in which the Self, the body, and so on, are compared to the lord of a chariot, a chariot, &c., 'Know the Self to be the lord of the chariot, the body to be the chariot, the intellect the charioteer, and the mind the reins. The senses they call the horses, the objects of the senses their roads. When he (the Self) is in union with the body, the senses and the mind, then wise people call him the enjoyer.' The text then goes on to say that he whose senses, &c. are not well controlled enters into samsâra, while he who has them under control reaches the end of the journey, the highest place of Vishnu. The question then arises: What is the end of the journey, the highest place of Vishnu? Whereupon the text explains that the highest Self which is higher than the senses, &c., spoken of is the end of the journey, the highest place of Vishnu. 'Beyond the senses there are the objects, beyond the objects there is the mind, beyond the mind there is the intellect, the great Self is beyond the intellect. Beyond the great there is the Undeveloped, beyond the Undeveloped there is the Person. Beyond the Person there is nothing--this is the goal, the highest Road.' In this passage we recognise the senses, &c. which in the preceding simile had been compared to horses and so on, and we thus avoid the mistake of abandoning the matter in hand and taking up a new subject. The senses, the intellect, and the mind are referred to in both passages under the same names. The objects (in the second passage) are the objects which are (in the former passage) designated as the roads of the senses; that the objects are beyond (higher than) the senses is known from the scriptural passage representing the senses as grahas, i.e. graspers, and the objects as atigrahas, i. e. superior to the grahas (Bri Up. III, 2). The mind (manas) again is superior to the objects, because the relation of the senses and their objects is based on the mind. The intellect
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(buddhi) is higher than the mind, since the objects of enjoyment are conveyed to the soul by means of the intellect. Higher than the intellect is the great Self which was represented as the lord of the chariot in the passage, 'Know the Self to be the lord of the chariot.' That the same Self is referred to in both passages is manifest from the repeated use of the word 'Self;' that the Self is superior to intelligence is owing to the circumstance that the enjoyer is naturally superior to the instrument of enjoyment. The Self is appropriately called great as it is the master.--Or else the phrase 'the great Self' may here denote the intellect of the first-born Hiranyagarbha which is the basis of all intellects; in accordance with the following Smriti-passage' it is called mind, the great one; reflection, Brahman; the stronghold, intellect; enunciation, the Lord; highest knowledge, consciousness; thought, remembrance 1,' and likewise with the following scriptural passage, 'He (Hiranyagarbha) who first creates Brahman and delivers the Vedas to him' (Svet. Up. VI, 18). The intellect, which in the former passage had been referred to under its common name buddhi, is here mentioned separately, since it may be represented as superior to our human intellects. On this latter explanation of the term 'the great Self,' we must assume that the personal Self which in the simile had been compared to the charioteer is, in the latter passage, included in the highest person (mentioned last); to which there is no objection, since in reality the personal Self and the highest Self are identical.--Thus there remains now the body only which had before been compared to a chariot. We therefore conclude
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that the text after having enumerated the senses and all the other things mentioned before, in order to point out the highest place, points out by means of the one remaining word, viz. avyakta, the only thing remaining out of those which had been mentioned before, viz. the body. The entire passage aims at conveying the knowledge of the unity of the inward Self and Brahman, by describing the soul's passing through samsâra and release under the form of a simile in which the body, &c. of the soul--which is affected by Nescience and therefore joined to a body, senses, mind, intellect, objects, sensations, &c.--are compared to a chariot, and so on.--In accordance with this the subsequent verse states the difficulty of knowing the highest place of Vishnu ('the Self is hidden in all beings and does not shine forth, but it is seen by subtle seers through their sharp and subtle intellect'), and after that the next verse declares Yoga to be the means of attaining that cognition. 'A wise man should keep down speech in the mind, he should keep down the mind in intelligence, intelligence he should keep down within the great Self, and he should keep that within the quiet Self.'--That means: The wise man should restrain the activity of the outer organs such as speech, &c., and abide within the mind only; he should further restrain the mind which is intent on doubtful external objects within intelligence, whose characteristic mark is decision, recognising that indecision is evil; he should further restrain intelligence within the great Self, i.e. the individual soul or else the fundamental intellect; he should finally fix the great Self on the calm Self, i.e. the highest Self, the highest goal, of which the whole chapter treats.--If we in this manner review the general context, we perceive that there is no room for the pradhâna imagined by the Sânkhyas.
Footnotes
238:1 The Great one is the technical Sânkhya-term for buddhi, avyakta is a common designation of pradhâna or prakriti, and purusha is the technical name of the soul. Compare, for instance, Sânkhya Kâr. 2, 3.240:1 Samkalpavikalparûpamananasaktyâ hairanyagarbhî buddhir manas tasyâh vyashtimanahsu samashtitayâ vyâptim âha mahân iti, Samkalpâdisktitayâ tarhi samdehâtmatvam tatrâha matir iti. Mahatvam upapâdayati brahmeti. Bhogyagâtâdhâratvam âha pûr iti. Niskayâtmakatvam âha buddhir iti. Kîrtisaktimattvam âha khyâtir iti. Niyamanasaktimatvam aha îsvara iti. Loke yat prakrishtam gñânam tato#natirekam âha pragñeti. Tatphalam api tato nârthântaravishayam ity âha samvid iti. Kitpradhânatvam âha kitir iti. Gñatasarvârtbânusamdhânasaktim âha smritis keti. Ânanda Giri.
It has been asserted, under the preceding Sûtra, that the term 'the Undeveloped' signifies, on account of the general
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subject-matter and because the body only remains, the body and not the pradhâna of the Sânkhyas.--But here the following doubt arises: How can the word 'undeveloped' appropriately denote the body which, as a gross and clearly appearing thing, should rather be called vyakta, i.e. that which is developed or manifested?
To this doubt the Sûtra replies that what the term avyakta denotes is the subtle causal body. Anything subtle may be spoken of as Undeveloped. The gross body indeed cannot directly be termed 'undeveloped,' but the subtle parts of the elements from which the gross body originates may be called so, and that the term denoting the causal substance is applied to the effect also is a matter of common occurrence; compare, for instance, the phrase 'mix the Soma with cows, i.e. milk' (Rig-veda. S. IX, 46, 4). Another scriptural passage also--'now all this was then undeveloped' (Bri. Up. I, 4, 7)--shows that this, i.e. this developed world with its distinction of names and forms, is capable of being termed undeveloped in so far as in a former condition it was in a merely seminal or potential state, devoid of the later evolved distinctions of name and form.
Here a new objection is raised.--If, the opponent says, in order to prove the possibility of the body being called undeveloped you admit that this world in its antecedent seminal condition before either names or forms are evolved can be called undeveloped, you virtually concede the doctrine that the pradhâna is the cause of the world. For we Sânkhyas understand by the term pradhâna nothing but that antecedent condition of the world.
Things lie differently, we rejoin. If we admitted some antecedent state of the world as the independent cause of the actual world, we should indeed implicitly, admit the
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pradhâna doctrine. What we admit is, however, only a previous state dependent on the highest Lord, not an independent state. A previous stage of the world such as the one assumed by us must necessarily be admitted, since it is according to sense and reason. For without it the highest Lord could not be conceived as creator, as he could not become active if he were destitute of the potentiality of action. The existence of such a causal potentiality renders it moreover possible that the released souls should not enter on new courses of existence, as it is destroyed by perfect knowledge. For that causal potentiality is of the nature of Nescience; it is rightly denoted by the term 'undeveloped;' it has the highest Lord for its substratum; it is of the nature of an illusion; it is a universal sleep in which are lying the transmigrating souls destitute for the time of the consciousness of their individual character. 1 This undeveloped principle is sometimes denoted by the term âkâsa, ether; so, for instance, in the passage, 'In that Imperishable then, O Gârgî, the ether is woven like warp and woof' (Bri. Up. III, 8, 11). Sometimes, again, it is denoted by the term akshara, the Imperishable; so, for instance (Mu. Up. II, 1, 2), 'Higher, than the high Imperishable.' Sometimes it is spoken of as Mâyâ, illusion; so, for instance (Sve. Up. IV, 10), 'Know then Prakriti is Mâyâ, and the great Lord he who is affected with Mâyâ.' For Mâyâ is properly called undeveloped or non-manifested since it cannot be defined either as that which is or that which is not.--The statement of the Kâthaka that 'the Undeveloped is beyond the Great
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one' is based on the fact of the Great one originating from the Undeveloped, if the Great one be the intellect of Hiranyagarbha. If, on the other hand, we understand by the Great one the individual soul, the statement is founded on the fact of the existence of the individual soul depending on the Undeveloped, i.e. Nescience. For the continued existence of the individual soul as such is altogether owing to the relation in which it stands to Nescience. The quality of being beyond the Great one which in the first place belongs to the Undeveloped, i.e. Nescience, is attributed to the body which is the product of Nescience, the cause and the effect being considered as identical. Although the senses, &c. are no less products of Nescience, the term 'the Undeveloped' here refers to the body only, the senses, &c. having already been specially mentioned by their individual names, and the body alone being left.--Other interpreters of the two last Sûtras give a somewhat different explanation 1.--There are, they say, two kinds of body, the gross one and the subtle one. The gross body is the one which is perceived; the nature of the subtle one will be explained later on. (Ved. Sû. III, 1, 1.) Both these bodies together were in the simile compared to the chariot; but here (in the passage under discussion) only the subtle body is referred to as the Undeveloped, since the subtle body only is capable of being denoted by that term. And as the soul's passing through bondage and release depends on the subtle body, the latter is said to be beyond the soul, like the things (arthavat), i.e. just as the objects are said to be beyond the senses because the activity of the latter depends on the objects.--But how--we ask interpreters--is it possible that the word 'Undeveloped' should refer to the subtle body only, while, according to your opinion, both bodies had in the simile been represented as a chariot, and so equally constitute part of the topic of the chapter, and equally remain (to be mentioned in the
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passage under discussion)?--If you should rejoin that you are authorised to settle the meaning of what the text actually mentions, but not to find fault with what is not mentioned, and that the word avyakta which occurs in the text can denote only the subtle body, but not the gross body which is vyakta, i.e. developed or manifest; we invalidate this rejoinder by remarking that the determination of the sense depends on the circumstance of the passages interpreted constituting a syntactical whole. For if the earlier and the later passage do not form a whole they convey no sense, since that involves the abandonment of the subject started and the taking up of a new subject. But syntactical unity cannot be established unless it be on the ground of there being a want of a complementary part of speech or sentence. If you therefore construe the connexion of the passages without having regard to the fact that the latter passage demands as its complement that both bodies (which had been spoken of in the former passage) should be understood as referred to, you destroy all syntactical unity and so incapacitate yourselves from arriving at the true meaning of the text. Nor must you think that the second passage occupies itself with the subtle body only, for that reason that the latter is not easily distinguished from the Self, while the gross body is easily so distinguished on account of its readily perceived loathsomeness. For the passage does not by any means refer to such a distinction--as we conclude from the circumstance of there being no verb enjoining it--but has for its only subject the highest place of Vishnu, which had been mentioned immediately before. For after having enumerated a series of things in which the subsequent one is always superior to the one preceding it, it concludes by saying that nothing is beyond the Person.--We might, however, accept the interpretation just discussed without damaging our general argumentation; for whichever explanation we receive, so much remains clear that the Kâthaka passage does not refer to the pradhâna.
Footnotes
243:1 Nanu na bîgasaktir vidyayâ dahyate vastutvâd âtmavan nety âha avidyeti. Kekit tu pratigîvam avidyasaktibhedam ikkhanti tan na avyaktâvyâkritâdisabdâyâs tasyâ bhedakâbhâvâd ekatve#pi svasaktyâ vikitrakâryakaratvâd ity âha avyakteti. Na ka tasyâ gîvâsrayatvam gîvasabdavâkyasya kalpitatvâd avidyârûpatvât takkhabdalakshyasya brahmâvyatirekâd ity âha paramesvareti. Mâyâvidyayor bhedâd îsvarasya mâyâsrayatvam gîvânâm avidyâsrayateti vadantam pratyâha mâyâmayîti. Yathâ mâyâvino mâyâ paratantrâ tathaishâpîty arthah. Pratîtau tasyâs ketanâpekshâm âha mahâsuptir iti. Ânanda Giri.244:1 Sûtradvayasya vrittikridvyâkhyânam utthâpayati. Go. Ân. Âkâryadesîyamatam utthâpayati. Ân. Gi.
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there is no statement as to (the avyakta) being something to be cognised.
The Sânkhyas, moreover, represent the pradhâna as something to be cognised in so far as they say that from the knowledge of the difference of the constitutive elements of the pradhâna and of the soul there results the desired isolation of the soul. For without a knowledge of the nature of those constitutive elements it is impossible to cognise the difference of the soul from them. And somewhere they teach that the pradhâna is to be cognised by him who wishes to attain special powers.--Now in the passage under discussion the avyakta is not mentioned as an object of knowledge; we there meet with the mere word avyakta, and there is no sentence intimating that the avyakta is to be known or meditated upon. And it is impossible to maintain that a knowledge of things which (knowledge) is not taught in the text is of any advantage to man.--For this reason also we maintain that the word avyakta cannot denote the pradhâna.--Our interpretation, on the other hand, is unobjectionable, since according to it the passage mentions the body (not as an object of knowledge, but merely) for the purpose of throwing light on the highest place of Vishnu, in continuation of the simile in which the body had been compared to a chariot.
Here the Sânkhya raises a new objection, and maintains that the averment made in the last Sûtra is not proved, since the text later on speaks of the pradhâna--which had been referred to as the Undeveloped--as an object of knowledge. 'He who has perceived that which is without sound, without touch, without form, without decay, without taste, eternal, without smell, without beginning, without end, beyond the great and unchangeable, is freed from the jaws of death' (Ka. Up. II, 3, 15). For here the text speaks of the pradhâna,
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which is beyond the great, describing it as possessing the same qualities which the Sânkhya-smriti ascribes to it, and designating it as the object of perception. Hence we conclude that the pradhâna is denoted by the term avyakta.
To this we reply that the passage last quoted does represent as the object of perception not the pradhâna but the intelligent, i.e. the highest Self. We conclude this from the general subject-matter. For that the highest Self continues to form the subject-matter is clear from the following reasons. In the first place, it is referred to in the passage, 'Beyond the person there is nothing, this is the goal, the highest Road;' it has further to be supplied as the object of knowledge in the passage, 'The Self is hidden in all beings and does not shine forth,' because it is there spoken of as difficult to know; after that the restraint of passion, &c. is enjoined as conducive to its cognition, in the passage, 'A wise man should keep down speech within the mind;' and, finally, release from the jaws of death is declared to be the fruit of its knowledge. The Sânkhyas, on the other hand, do not suppose that a man is freed from the jaws of death merely by perceiving the pradhâna, but connect that result rather with the cognition of the intelligent Self.--The highest Self is, moreover, spoken of in all Vedânta-texts as possessing just those qualities which are mentioned in the passage quoted above, viz. absence of sound, and the like. Hence it follows, that the pradhâna is in the text neither spoken of as the object of knowledge nor denoted by the term avyakta.
To the same conclusion we are led by the consideration of the circumstance that the Kathavallî-upanishad brings forward, as subjects of discussion, only three things, viz. the fire sacrifice, the individual soul, and the highest Self. These three things only Yama explains, bestowing thereby the boons he had granted, and to them only the questions of Nakiketas refer. Nothing else is mentioned or enquired
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about. The question relative to the fire sacrifice is contained in the passage (Ka. Up. I, 1, 13), 'Thou knowest, O Death, the fire sacrifice which leads us to Heaven; tell it to me, who am full of faith.' The question as to the individual soul is contained in I, 1, 20, 'There is that doubt when a man is dead, some saying, he is; others, he is not. This I should like to know, taught by thee; this is the third of my boons.' And the question about the highest Self is asked in the passage (I, 2, 14), 'That which thou seest as neither this nor that, as neither effect nor cause, as neither past nor future, tell me that.'--The corresponding answers are given in I, 1, 15, 'Yama then told him that fire sacrifice, the beginning of all the worlds, and what bricks are required for the altar, and how many;' in the passage met with considerably later on (II, 5, 6; 7), 'Well then, O Gautama, I shall tell thee this mystery, the old Brahman and what happens to the Self after reaching death. Some enter the womb in order to have a body as organic beings, others go into inorganic matter according to their work and according to their knowledge;' and in the passage (I, 2, 18), 'The knowing Self is not born nor does it die,' &c.; which latter passage dilates at length on the highest Self. But there is no question relative to the pradhâna, and hence no opportunity for any remarks on it.
Here the Sânkhya advances a new objection. Is, he asks, the question relative to the Self which is asked in the passage, 'There is that doubt when a man is dead,' &c., again resumed in the passage, 'That which thou seest as neither this nor that,' &c, or does the latter passage raise a distinct new question? If the former, the two questions about the Self coalesce into one, and there are therefore altogether two questions only, one relative to the fire sacrifice, the other relative to the Self. In that case the Sûtra has no right to speak of questions and explanations relating to three subjects.--If the latter, you do not consider it a mistake to assume a question in excess of the number of boons granted, and can therefore not object to us if we assume an explanation about the pradhâna in excess of the number of questions asked.
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To this we make the following reply.--We by no means assume a question in excess of the number of boons granted, being prevented from doing so by the influence of the opening part of that syntactical whole which constitutes the Kathavallî-upanishad. The Upanishad starts with the topic of the boons granted by Yama, and all the following part of the Upanishad--which is thrown into the form of a colloquy of Yama and Nakiketas--carries on that topic up to the very end. Yama grants to Nakiketas, who had been sent by his father, three boons. For his first boon Nakiketas chooses kindness on the part of his father towards him, for his second boon the knowledge of the fire sacrifice, for his third boon the knowledge of the Self. That the knowledge of the Self is the third boon appears from the indication contained in the passage (I, 1, 20), 'There is that doubt--; this is the third of my boons.'--If we therefore supposed that the passage, 'That which thou seest as neither this nor that,' &c., raises a new question, we should thereby assume a question in excess of the number of boons granted, and thus destroy the connexion of the entire Upanishad.--But-the Sânkhya will perhaps interpose--it must needs be admitted that the passage last quoted does raise a new question, because the subject enquired about is a new one. For the former question refers to the individual soul, as we conclude from the doubt expressed in the words, 'There is that doubt when a man is dead--some saying, he is; others, he is not.' Now this individual soul, as having definite attributes, &c., cannot constitute the object of a question expressed in such terms as, 'This which thou seest as neither this nor that,' &c.; the highest Self, on the other hand, may be enquired about in such terms, since it is above all attributes. The appearance of the two questions is, moreover, seen to differ; for the former question refers to existence and non-existence, while the latter is concerned with an entity raised above all definite attributes, &c. Hence we conclude that the latter question, in which the former one cannot be recognised, is a separate question, and does not merely resume the subject of the former one.--All this argumentation is not valid, we reply, since we maintain the unity of the highest Self and the
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individual Self. If the individual Self were different from the highest Self, we should have to declare that the two questions are separate independent questions, but the two are not really different, as we know from other scriptural passages, such as 'Thou art that.' And in the Upanishad under discussion also the answer to the question, 'That which thou seest as neither this nor that,' viz. the passage, 'The knowing Self is not born, it dies not'--which answer is given in the form of a denial of the birth and death of the Self-clearly shows that the embodied Self and the highest Self are non-different. For there is room for a denial of something only when that something is possible, and the possibility of birth and death exists in the embodied Self only, since it is connected with the body, but not in the highest Self.--There is, moreover, another passage conveying the same meaning, viz. II, 4, 4, 'The wise when he knows that that by which he perceives all objects in sleep or in waking, is the great omnipresent Self, grieves no more.' This passage makes the cessation of all grief dependent on the knowledge of the individual Self, in so far as it possesses the qualities of greatness and omnipresence, and thereby declares that the individual Self is not different from the highest Self. For that the cessation of all sorrow is consequent on the knowledge of the highest Self, is a recognised Vedânta tenet.--There is another passage also warning men not to look on the individual Self and the highest Self as different entities, viz. II, 4, 10, 'What is here the same is there; and what is there the same is here. He who sees any difference here goes from death to death.'--The following circumstance, too, is worthy of consideration. When Nakiketas has asked the question relating to the existence or non-existence of the soul after death, Yama tries to induce him to choose another boon, tempting him with the offer of various objects of desire. But Nakiketas remains firm. Thereupon Death, dwelling on the distinction of the Good and the Pleasant, and the distinction of wisdom and ignorance, praises Nakiketas, 'I believe Nakiketas to be one who desires knowledge, for even many pleasures did not tear thee away' (I, 2, 4); and later on praises the question
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asked by Nakiketas, 'The wise who, by means of meditation on his Self, recognises the Ancient who is difficult to be seen, who has entered into the dark, who is hidden in the cave, who dwells in the abyss, as God, he indeed leaves joy and sorrow far behind' (I, 2, 12). Now all this means to intimate that the individual Self and the highest Self are non-different. For if Nakiketas set aside the question, by asking which he had earned for himself the praise of Yama, and after having received that praise asked a new question, all that praise would have been bestowed on him unduly. Hence it follows that the question implied in I, 2, 14, 'That which thou seest as neither this nor that,' merely resumes the topic to which the question in I, 1, 20 had referred.--Nor is there any basis to the objection that the two questions differ in form. The second question, in reality, is concerned with the same distinction as the first. The first enquires about the existence of the soul apart from the body, &c.; the second refers to the circumstance of that soul not being subject to samsâra. For as long as Nescience remains, so long the soul is affected with definite attributes, &c.; but as soon as Nescience comes to an end, the soul is one with the highest Self, as is taught by such scriptural texts as 'Thou art that.' But whether Nescience be active or inactive, no difference is made thereby in the thing itself (viz. the soul). A man may, in the dark, mistake a piece of rope lying on the ground for a snake, and run away from it, frightened and trembling; thereon another man may tell him, 'Do not be afraid, it is only a rope, not a snake;' and he may then dismiss the fear caused by the imagined snake, and stop running. But all the while the presence and subsequent absence of his erroneous notion, as to the rope being a snake, make no difference whatever in the rope itself. Exactly analogous is the case of the individual soul which is in reality one with the highest soul, although Nescience makes it appear different. Hence the reply contained in the passage, 'It is not born, it dies not,' is also to be considered as furnishing an answer to the question asked in I, 1, 20.--The Sutra is to be understood with reference to the distinction of the individual Self and the highest Self which
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results from Nescience. Although the question relating to the Self is in reality one only, yet its former part (I, 1, 20) is seen specially to refer to the individual Self, since there a doubt is set forth as to the existence of the soul when, at the time of death, it frees itself from the body, and since the specific marks of the samsâra-state, such as activity, &c. are not denied; while the latter part of the question (I, 2, 14), where the state of being beyond all attributes is spoken of, clearly refers to the highest Self.--For these reasons the Sûtra is right in assuming three topics of question and explanation, viz. the fire sacrifice, the individual soul, and the highest Self. Those, on the other hand, who assume that the pradhâna constitutes a fourth subject discussed in the Upanishad, can point neither to a boon connected with it, nor to a question, nor to an answer. Hence the pradhâna hypothesis is clearly inferior to our own.
While the Sânkhyas employ the term 'the Great one,' to denote the first-born entity, which is mere existence 1(? viz. the intellect), the term has a different meaning in Vedic use. This we see from its being connected with the Self, &c. in such passages as the following, 'The great Self is beyond the Intellect' (Ka. Up. I, 3, 10); 'The great omnipresent Self (Ka. Up. I, 2, 23); 'I know that great person' (Sve. Up. III, 8). We thence conclude that the word avyakta also, where it occurs in the Veda, cannot denote the pradhâna.--The pradhâna is therefore a mere thing of inference, and not vouched for by Scripture.
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pradhâna) because no special characteristic is stated; as in the case of the cup.
Here the advocate of the pradhâna comes again forward and maintains that the absence of scriptural authority for the pradhâna is not yet proved. For, he says, we have the following mantra (Sve. Up. IV, 5), 'There is one agâ 1, red, white, and black, producing manifold offspring of the same nature. There is one agâ who loves her and lies by her; there is another who leaves her after having enjoyed her.'--In this mantra the words 'red,' 'white,' and 'black' denote the three constituent elements of the pradhâna. Passion is called red on account of its colouring, i.e. influencing property; Goodness is called white, because it is of the nature of Light; Darkness is called black on account of its covering and obscuring property. The state of equipoise of the three constituent elements, i.e. the pradhâna, is denoted by the attributes of its parts, and is therefore called red-white-black. It is further called agâ, i.e. unborn, because it is acknowledged to be the fundamental matter out of which everything springs, not a mere effect.--But has not the word agâ the settled meaning of she-goat?--True; but the ordinary meaning of the word cannot be accepted in this place, because true knowledge forms the general subject-matter.--That pradhâna produces many creatures participating in its three constituent elements. One unborn being loves her and lies by her, i.e. some souls, deluded by ignorance, approach her, and falsely imagining that they experience pleasure or pain, or are in a state of dulness, pass through the course of transmigratory existence. Other souls, again, which have attained to discriminative knowledge, lose their attachment to prakriti, and leave her after having enjoyed her, i.e. after she has afforded to them enjoyment and release.--On the ground of this passage, as interpreted above, the
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followers of Kapila claim the authority of Scripture for their pradhâna hypothesis.
To this argumentation we reply, that the quoted mantra by no means proves the Sânkhya doctrine to be based on Scripture. That mantra, taken by itself, is not able to give additional strength to any doctrine. For, by means of some supposition or other, the terms agâ, &c. can be reconciled with any doctrine, and there is no reason for the special assertion that the Sânkhya doctrine only is meant. The case is analogous to that of the cup mentioned in the mantra, 'There is a cup having its mouth below and its bottom above' (Bri. Up. II, 2, 3). Just as it is impossible to decide on the ground of this mantra taken by itself what special cup is meant--it being possible to ascribe, somehow or other, the quality of the mouth being turned downward to any cup--; so here also there is no special quality stated, so that it is not possible to decide from the mantra itself whether the pradhâna is meant by the term agâ, or something else.--But in connexion with the mantra about the cup we have a supplementary passage from which we learn what kind of cup is meant, 'What is called the cup having its mouth below and its bottom above is this head.'--Whence, however, can we learn what special being is meant by the agâ of the Svetâsvatara-upanishad?--To this question the next Sûtra replies.
By the term agâ we have to understand the causal matter of the four classes of beings, which matter has sprung from the highest Lord and begins with light, i.e. comprises fire, water, and earth.--The word 'but' (in the Sûtra) gives emphasis to the assertion.--This agâ is to be considered as comprising three elementary substances, not as consisting of three gunas in the Sânkhya sense. We draw this conclusion from the fact that one sâkhâ, after having related how fire, water, and earth sprang from the highest Lord, assigns to them red colour, and so on. 'The red colour of burning fire
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[paragraph continues] (agni) is the colour of the elementary fire (tegas), its white colour is the colour of water, its black colour the colour of earth,' &c. Now those three elements--fire, water, and earth--we recognise in the Svetâsvatara passage, as the words red, white, and black are common to both passages, and as these words primarily denote special colours and can be applied to the Sânkhya gunas in a secondary sense only. That passages whose sense is beyond doubt are to be used for the interpretation of doubtful passages, is a generally acknowledged rule. As we therefore find that in the Svetâsvatara--after the general topic has been started in I, 1, 'The Brahman-students say, Is Brahman the cause?'--the text, previous to the passage under discussion, speaks of a power of the highest Lord which arranges the whole world ('the Sages devoted to meditation and concentration have seen the power belonging to God himself, hidden in its own qualities'); and as further that same power is referred to in two subsequent complementary passages ('Know then, Prakriti is Mâyâ, and the great Lord he who is affected with Mâyâ;' 'who being one only rules over every germ;' IV, 10, 11); it cannot possibly be asserted that the mantra treating of the agâ refers to some independent causal matter called pradhâna. We rather assert, on the ground of the general subject-matter, that the mantra describes the same divine power referred to in the other passages, in which names and forms lie unevolved, and which we assume as the antecedent condition of that state of the world in which names and forms are evolved. And that divine power is represented as three-coloured, because its products, viz. fire, water, and earth, have three distinct colours.--But how can we maintain, on the ground of fire, water, and earth having three colours, that the causal matter is appropriately called a three-coloured agâ? if we consider, on the one hand, that the exterior form of the genus agâ (i.e. goat) does not inhere in fire, water, and earth; and, on the other hand, that Scripture teaches fire, water, and earth to have been produced, so that the word agâ cannot be taken in the sense 'non-produced 1.'--To this question the next Sûtra replies.
Footnotes
255:1 Here there seems to be a certain discrepancy between the p. 256 views of the Sûtra writer and Sankara. Govindânanda notes that according to the Bhâshyakrit agâ means simply mâyâ--which interpretation is based on prakarana--while, according to the Sûtra-krit, who explains agâ on the ground of the Khândogya-passage treating of the three primary elements, agâ denotes the aggregate of those three elements constituting an avântaraprakriti.--On Sankara's explanation the term agâ presents no difficulties, for mâyâ is agâ, i.e. unborn, not produced. On the explanation of the Sûtra writer, however, agâ cannot mean unborn, since the three primary elements are products. Hence we are thrown back on the rûdhi signification of agâ, according to which it means she-goat. But how can the avântara-prakriti be called a she-goat? To this question the next Sûtra replies.The word agâ neither expresses that fire, water, and earth belong to the goat species, nor is it to be explained as meaning 'unborn;' it rather expresses an assumption, i.e. it intimates the assumption of the source of all beings (which source comprises fire, water, and earth), being compared to a she-goat. For as accidentally some she-goat might be partly red, partly white, partly black, and might have many young goats resembling her in colour, and as some he-goat might love her and lie by her, while some other he-goat might leave her after having enjoyed her; so the universal causal matter which is tri-coloured, because comprising fire, water, and earth, produces many inanimate and animate beings similar to itself, and is enjoyed by the souls fettered by Nescience, while it is abandoned by those souls which have attained true knowledge.--Nor must we imagine that the distinction of individual souls, which is implied in the preceding explanation, involves that reality of the multiplicity of souls which forms one of the tenets of other philosophical schools. For the purport of the passage is to intimate, not the multiplicity of souls, but the distinction of
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the states of bondage and release. This latter distinction is explained with reference to the multiplicity of souls as ordinarily conceived; that multiplicity, however, depends altogether on limiting adjuncts, and is the unreal product of wrong knowledge merely; as we know from scriptural passages such as, 'He is the one God hidden in all beings, all-pervading, the Self in all beings,' &c.--The words 'like the honey' (in the Sûtra) mean that just as the sun, although not being honey, is represented as honey (Kh. Up. III, 1), and speech as a cow (Bri. Up. V, 8), and the heavenly world, &c. as the fires (Bri. Up. VI, 2, 9), so here the causal matter, although not being a she-goat, is metaphorically represented as one. There is therefore nothing contrary to reason in the circumstance of the term agâ being used to denote the aggregate of fire, water, and earth.
The attempt to base the Sânkhya doctrine on the mantra speaking of the agâ having failed, the Sânkhya again comes forward and points to another mantra: 'He in whom the five "five-people" and the ether rest, him alone I believe to be the Self; I who know believe him to be Brahman' (Bri. Up. IV, 4, 17). In this mantra we have one word which expresses the number five, viz. the five-people, and then another word, viz. five, which qualifies the former; these two words together therefore convey the idea of five pentads, i.e. twenty-five. Now as many beings as the number twenty-five presupposes, just so many categories the Sânkhya system counts. Cp. Sânkhya Kârikâ, 3: 'The fundamental causal substance (i.e. the pradhâna) is not an effect. Seven (substances), viz. the Great one (Intellect), and so on, are causal substances as well as effects. Sixteen are effects. The soul is neither a causal substance nor an effect.'
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[paragraph continues] As therefore the number twenty-five, which occurs in the scriptural passage quoted, clearly refers to the twenty-five categories taught in the Sânkhya-smriti, it follows that the doctrine of the pradhâna, &c. rests on a scriptural basis.
To this reasoning we make the following reply.--It is impossible to base the assertion that the pradhâna, &c. have Scripture in their favour on the reference to their number which you pretend to find in the text, 'on account of the diversity of the Sânkhya categories.' The Sânkhya categories, have each their individual difference, and there are no attributes belonging in common to each pentad on account of which the number twenty-five could be divided into five times five. For a number of individually separate things can, in general, not be combined into smaller groups of two or three, &c. unless there be a special reason for such combination.--Here the Sânkhya will perhaps rejoin that the expression five (times) five is used only to denote the number twenty-five which has five pentads for its constituent parts; just as the poem says, 'five years and seven Indra did not rain,' meaning only that there was no rain for twelve years.--But this explanation also is not tenable. In the first place, it is liable to the objection that it has recourse to indirect indication. 1 In the second place, the second 'five' constitutes a compound with the word 'people,' the Brâhmana-accent showing that the two form one word only. 2 To the same conclusion we are led by another passage also (Taitt. Samh. I, 6, 2, 2, pañkânâm tvâ pañkaganânâm, &c.) where the two terms constitute one word, have one accent and one case-termination.
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[paragraph continues] The word thus being a compound there is neither a repetition of the word 'five,' involving two pentads, nor does the one five qualify the other, as the mere secondary member of a compound cannot be qualified by another word.--But as the people are already denoted to be five by the compound 'five-people,' the effect of the other 'five' qualifying the compound will be that we understand twenty-five people to be meant; just as the expression 'five five-bundles' (pañka pañkapûlyah) conveys the idea of twenty-five bundles.--The instance is not an analogous one, we reply. The word 'pañkapûli' denotes a unity (i.e. one bundle made up of five bundles) and hence when the question arises, 'How many such bundles are there?' it can be qualified by the word 'five,' indicating that there are five such bundles. The word pañkaganâh, on the other hand, conveys at once the idea of distinction (i.e. of five distinct things), so that there is no room at all for a further desire to know how many people there are, and hence no room for a further qualification. And if the word 'five' be taken as a qualifying word it can only qualify the numeral five (in five-people); the objection against which assumption has already been stated.--For all these reasons the expression the five five-people cannot denote the twenty-five categories of the Sânkhyas.--This is further not possible 'on account of the excess.' For on the Sânkhya interpretation there would be an excess over the number twenty-five, owing to the circumstance of the ether and the Self being mentioned separately. The Self is spoken of as the abode in which the five five-people rest, the clause 'Him I believe to be the Self' being connected with the 'in whom' of the antecedent clause. Now the Self is the intelligent soul of the Sânkhyas which is already included in the twenty-five categories, and which therefore, on their interpretation of the passage, would here be mentioned once as constituting the abode and once as what rests in the abode! If, on the other hand, the soul were supposed not to be compiled in the twenty-five categories, the Sânkhya would thereby abandon his own doctrine of the categories being twenty-five. The same
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remarks apply to the separate mention made of the ether.--How, finally, can the mere circumstance of a certain number being referred to in the sacred text justify the assumption that what is meant are the twenty-five Sânkhya categories of which Scripture speaks in no other place? especially if we consider that the word gana has not the settled meaning of category, and that the number may be satisfactorily accounted for on another interpretation of the passage.
How, then, the Sânkhya will ask, do you interpret the phrase 'the five five-people?'--On the ground, we reply, of the rule Pânini II, 1, 50, according to which certain compounds formed with numerals are mere names. The word pañkaganâh thus is not meant to convey the idea of the number five, but merely to denote certain classes of beings. Hence the question may present itself, How many such classes are there? and to this question an answer is given by the added numeral 'five.' There are certain classes of beings called five-people, and these classes are five. Analogously we may speak of the seven seven-rishis, where again the compound denotes a class of beings merely, not their number.--Who then are those five-people?--To this question the next Sûtra replies.
Footnotes
258:1 Indication (lakshanâ, which consists in this case in five times five being used instead of twenty-five) is considered as an objectionable mode of expression, and therefore to be assumed in interpretation only where a term can in no way be shown to have a direct meaning.258:2 That pañkaganâh is only one word appears from its having only one accent, viz. the udâtta on the last syllable, which udâtta becomes anudâtta according to the rules laid down in the Bhâshika Sûtra for the accentuation of the Satapatha-brâhmana.
The mantra in which the pañkaganâh are mentioned is followed by another one in which breath and four other things are mentioned for the purpose of describing the nature of Brahman. 'They who know the breath of breath, the eye of the eye, the ear of the ear, the food of food, the mind of mind 1.' Hence we conclude, on the ground of proximity, that the five-people are the beings mentioned in this latter mantra.--But how, the Sânkhya asks, can the word 'people' be applied to the breath, the eye, the ear, and so on?--How, we ask in return, can it be
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applied to your categories? In both cases the common meaning of the word 'people' has to be disregarded; but in favour of our explanation is the fact that the breath, the eye, and so on, are mentioned in a complementary passage. The breath, the eye, &c. may be denoted by the word 'people' because they are connected with people. Moreover, we find the word 'person,' which means as much as 'people,' applied to the prânas in the passage, 'These are the five persons of Brahman' (Kh. Up. III, 13, 6); and another passage runs, 'Breath is father, breath is mother,' &c. (Kh. Up. VII, 15, 1). And, owing to the force of composition, there is no objection to the compound being taken in its settled conventional meaning 1.--But how can the conventional meaning be had recourse to, if there is no previous use of the word in that meaning?--That may be done, we reply, just as in the case of udbhid and similar words 2. We often infer that a word of unknown meaning refers to some known thing because it is used in connexion with the latter. So, for instance, in the case of the following words: 'He is to sacrifice with the udbhid; he cuts the yûpa; he makes the vedi.' Analogously we conclude that the term pañkaganâh, which, from the grammatical rule quoted, is known to be a name, and which therefore demands a thing of which it is the name, denotes the breath, the eye, and so on, which are connected with it through their being mentioned in a complementary passage.--Some commentators explain the word pañkaganâh
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to mean the Gods, the Fathers, the Gandharvas, the Asuras, and the Rakshas. Others, again, think that the four castes together with the Nishâdas are meant. Again, some scriptural passage (Rig-veda Samh. VIII, 53, 7) speaks of the tribe of 'the five-people,' meaning thereby the created beings in general; and this latter explanation also might be applied to the passage under discussion. The teacher (the Sûtrakâra), on the other hand, aiming at showing that the passage does not refer to the twenty-five categories of the Sânkhyas, declares that on the ground of the complementary passage breath, &c. have to be understood.
Well, let it then be granted that the five-people mentioned in the Mâdhyandina-text are breath, &c. since that text mentions food also (and so makes up the number five). But how shall we interpret the Kânva-text which does not mention food (and thus altogether speaks of four things only)?--To this question the next Sûtra replies.
Footnotes
260:1 So in the Mâdhyandina recension of the Upanishad; the Kânva recension has not the clause 'the food of food.'261:1 This in answer to the Sânkhya who objects to gana when applied to the prâna, &c. being interpreted with the help of lakshanâ; while if referred to the pradhâna, &c. it may be explained to have a direct meaning, on the ground of yaugika interpretation (the pradhâna being gana because it produces, the mahat &c. being gana because they are produced). The Vedântin points out that the compound pañkaganâh has its own rûdhi-meaning, just as asvakarna, literally horse-ear, which conventionally denotes a certain plant.
261:2 We infer that udbhid is the name of a sacrifice because it is mentioned in connexion with the act of sacrificing; we infer that the yûpa is a wooden post because it is said to be cut, and so on.
The Kânva-text, although not mentioning food, makes up the full number five, by the light mentioned in the mantra preceding that in which the five-people are spoken of. That mantra describes the nature of Brahman by saying, 'Him the gods worship as the light of lights.'--If it be asked how it is accounted for that the light mentioned in both texts equally is in one text to be employed for the explanation of the five-people, and not in the other text; we reply that the reason lies in the difference of the requirements. As the Mâdhyandinas meet in one and the same mantra with breath and four other entities enabling them to interpret the term, 'the five-people,' they are in no need of the light mentioned in another mantra. The Kânvas, on the other hand, cannot do without the light. The case is analogous to that of the Shodasin-cup, which, according to different
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passages, is either to be offered or not to be offered at the atirâtra-sacrifice.
We have proved herewith that Scripture offers no basis for the doctrine of the pradhâna. That this doctrine cannot be proved either by Smriti or by ratiocination will be shown later on.
In the preceding part of the work the right definition of Brahman has been established; it has been shown that all the Vedânta-texts have Brahman for their common topic; and it has been proved that there is no scriptural authority for the doctrine of the pradhâna.--But now a new objection presents itself.
It is not possible--our opponent says-to prove either that Brahman is the cause of the origin, &c. of the world, or that all Vedânta-texts refer to Brahman; because we observe that the Vedânta-texts contradict one another. All the Vedânta-passages which treat of the creation enumerate its successive steps in different order, and so in reality speak of different creations. In one place it is said that from the Self there sprang the ether (Taitt. Up. II, 1); in another place that the creation began with fire (Kh. Up. VI, 2, 3); in another place, again, that the Person created breath and from breath faith (Pr. Up. VI, 4); in another place, again, that the Self created these worlds, the water (above the heaven), light, the mortal (earth), and the water (below the earth) (Ait. Âr. II, 4, 1, 2; 3). There no order is stated at all. Somewhere else it is said that the creation originated from the Non-existent. 'In the beginning this was non-existent; from it was born what exists' (Taitt. Up. II, 7); and, 'In the beginning this was non-existent; it became existent; it grew' (Kh. Up. III, 19, 1). In another place,
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again, the doctrine of the Non-existent being the antecedent of the creation is impugned, and the Existent mentioned in its stead. 'Others say, in the beginning there was that only which is not; but how could it be thus, my dear? How could that which is be born of that which is not?' (Kh. Up. VI, 2, 1; 2.) And in another place, again, the development of the world is spoken of as having taken place spontaneously, 'Now all this was then undeveloped. It became developed by form and name' (Bri. Up. I, 4, 7).--As therefore manifold discrepancies are observed, and as no option is possible in the case of an accomplished matter 1, the Vedânta-passages cannot be accepted as authorities for determining the cause of the world, but we must rather accept some other cause of the world resting on the authority of Smriti and Reasoning.
To this we make the following reply.--Although the Vedânta-passages may be conflicting with regard to the order of the things created, such as ether and so on, they do not conflict with regard to the creator, 'on account of his being represented as described.' That means: such as the creator is described in any one Vedânta-passage, viz. as all-knowing, the Lord of all, the Self of all, without a second, so he is represented in all other Vedânta-passages also. Let us consider, for instance, the description of Brahman (given in Taitt. Up. II, 1 ff.). There it is said at first, 'Truth, knowledge, infinite is Brahman.' Here the word 'knowledge,' and so likewise the statement, made later on, that Brahman desired (II, 6), intimate that Brahman is of the nature of intelligence. Further, the text declares 2 that the cause of the world is the general Lord, by representing it as not dependent on anything else. It further applies to the cause of the world the term 'Self (II, 1), and it represents it as abiding within the series of sheaths beginning
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with the gross body; whereby it affirms it to be the internal Self within all beings. Again--in the passage, 'May I be many, may I grow forth'--it tells how the Self became many, and thereby declares that the creator is non-different from the created effects. And--in the passage, 'He created all this whatever there is'--it represents the creator as the Cause of the entire world, and thereby declares him to have been without a second previously to the creation. The same characteristics which in the above passages are predicated of Brahman, viewed as the Cause of the world, we find to be predicated of it in other passages also, so, for instance, 'Being only, my dear, was this in the beginning, one only, without a second. It thought, may I be many, may I grow forth. It sent forth fire' (Kh. Up. VI, 2, 1; 3), and 'In the beginning all this was Self, one only; there was nothing else blinking whatsoever. He thought, shall I send forth worlds?' (Ait. Âr. II, 4, 1, 1; 2.) The Vedânta-passages which are concerned with setting forth the cause of the world are thus in harmony throughout.--On the other hand, there are found conflicting statements concerning the world, the creation being in some places said to begin with ether, in other places with fire, and so on. But, in the first place, it cannot be said that the conflict of statements concerning the world affects the statements concerning the cause, i.e. Brahman, in which all the Vedânta-texts are seen to agree--for that would be an altogether unfounded generalization;--and, in the second place, the teacher will reconcile later on (II, 3) those conflicting passages also which refer to the world. And, to consider the matter more thoroughly, a conflict of statements regarding the world would not even matter greatly, since the creation of the world and similar topics are not at all what Scripture wishes to teach. For we neither observe nor are told by Scripture that the welfare of man depends on those matters in any way; nor have we the right to assume such a thing; because we conclude from the introductory and concluding clauses that the passages about the creation and the like form only subordinate members of passages treating of Brahman. That all the passages
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setting forth the creation and so on subserve the purpose of teaching Brahman, Scripture itself declares; compare Kh. Up. VI, 8, 4, 'As food too is an offshoot, seek after its root, viz. water. And as water too is an offshoot, seek after its root, viz. fire. And as fire too is an offshoot, seek after its root, viz. the True.' We, moreover, understand that by means of comparisons such as that of the clay (Kh. Up. VI, i, 4) the creation is described merely for the purpose of teaching us that the effect is not really different from the cause. Analogously it is said by those who know the sacred tradition, 'If creation is represented by means of (the similes of) clay, iron, sparks, and other things; that is only a means for making it understood that (in reality) there is no difference whatever' (Gaudap. Kâ. III, l5).--On the other hand, Scripture expressly states the fruits connected with the knowledge of Brahman, He who knows Brahman obtains the highest' (Taitt. Up. II, i); 'He who knows the Self overcomes grief' (Kh. Up. VII, i, 3); 'A man who knows him passes over death' (Sve. Up. III, 8). That fruit is, moreover, apprehended by intuition (pratyaksha), for as soon as, by means of the doctrine, 'That art thou,' a man has arrived at the knowledge that the Self is non-transmigrating, its transmigrating nature vanishes for him.
It remains to dispose of the assertion that passages such as 'Non-being this was in the beginning' contain conflicting statements about the nature of the cause. This is done in the next Sutra.
The passage 'Non-being indeed was this in the beginning' (Taitt. Up. II, 7) does not declare that the cause of the world is the absolutely Non-existent which is devoid of all Selfhood. For in the preceding sections of the Upanishad Brahman is distinctly denied to be the Non-existing, and is defined to be that which is ('He who knows the Brahman as non-existing becomes himself non-existing.
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[paragraph continues] He who knows the Brahman as existing him we know himself as existing'); it is further, by means of the series of sheaths, viz. the sheath of food, &c., represented as the inner Self of everything. This same Brahman is again referred to in the clause, 'He wished, may I be many;' is declared to have originated the entire creation; and is finally referred to in the clause, 'Therefore the wise call it the true.' Thereupon the text goes on to say, with reference to what has all along been the topic of discussion, 'On this there is also this sloka, Non-being indeed was this in the beginning,' &c.--If here the term 'Non-being' denoted the absolutely Non-existent, the whole context would be broken; for while ostensibly referring to one matter the passage would in reality treat of a second altogether different matter. We have therefore to conclude that, while the term 'Being' ordinarily denotes that which is differentiated by names and forms, the term 'Non-being' denotes the same substance previous to its differentiation, i.e. that Brahman is, in a secondary sense of the word, called Non-being, previously to the origination of the world. The same interpretation has to be applied to the passage 'Non-being this was in the beginning' (Kh. Up. III, 19, 1); for that passage also is connected with another passage which runs, 'It became being;' whence it is evident that the 'Non-being' of the former passage cannot mean absolute Non-existence. And in the passage, 'Others say, Non-being this was in the beginning' (Kh. Up. VI, 2, 1), the reference to the opinion of 'others' does not mean that the doctrine referred, to (according to which the world was originally absolutely non-existent) is propounded somewhere in the Veda; for option is possible in the case of actions but not in the case of substances. The passage has therefore to be looked upon as a refutation of the tenet of primitive absolute non-existence as fancifully propounded by some teachers of inferior intelligence; a refutation undertaken for the purpose of strengthening the doctrine that this world has sprung from that which is.--The following passage again, 'Now this was then undeveloped,' &c. (Bri. Up. I, 4, 7), does not by any means assert that the evolution of
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the world took place without a ruler; as we conclude from the circumstance of its being connected with another passage in which the ruler is represented as entering into the evolved world of effects, 'He entered thither to the very tips of the finger-nails' &c. If it were supposed that the evolution of the world takes place without a ruler, to whom could the subsequent pronoun 'he' refer (in the passage last quoted) which manifestly is to be connected with something previously intimated? And as Scripture declares that the Self, after having entered into the body, is of the nature of intelligence ('when seeing, eye by name; when hearing, ear by name; when thinking, mind by name'), it follows that it is intelligent at the time of its entering also.--We, moreover, must assume that the world was evolved at the beginning of the creation in the same way as it is at present seen to develop itself by names and forms, viz. under the rulership of an intelligent creator; for we have no right to make assumptions contrary to what is at present actually observed. Another scriptural passage also declares that the evolution of the world took place under the superintendence of a ruler, 'Let me now enter these beings with this living Self, and let me then evolve names and forms' (Kh. Up. VI, 3, 2). The intransitive expression 'It developed itself' (vyâkriyata; it became developed) is to be viewed as having reference to the ease with which the real agent, viz. the Lord, brought about that evolution. Analogously it is said, for instance, that 'the cornfield reaps itself' (i.e. is reaped with the greatest ease), although there is the reaper sufficient (to account for the work being done).--Or else we may look on the form vyâkriyata as having reference to a necessarily implied agent; as is the case in such phrases as 'the village is being approached' (where we necessarily have to supply 'by Devadatta or somebody else').
In the Kaushîtaki-brâhmana, in the dialogue of Bâlâki and Agâtasatru, we read, 'O Bâlâki, he who is the maker of
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those persons, he of whom this is the work, he alone is to be known' (Kau. Up. IV, 19). The question here arises whether what is here inculcated as the object of knowledge is the individual soul or the chief vital air or the highest Self.
The pûrvapakshin maintains that the vital air is meant. For, in the first place, he says, the clause 'of whom this is the work' points to the activity of motion, and that activity rests on the vital air. In the second place, we meet with the word 'prâna' in a complementary passage ('Then he becomes one with that prâna alone'), and that word is well known to denote the vital air. In the third place, prâna is the maker of all the persons, the person in the sun, the person in the moon, &c., who in the preceding part of the dialogue had been enumerated by Bâlâki; for that the sun and the other divinities are mere differentiations of prâna we know from another scriptural passage, viz. 'Who is that one god (in whom all the other gods are contained)? Prâna and he is Brahman, and they call him That' (Bri. Up. III, 9, 9).--Or else, the pûrvapakshin continues, the passage under discussion represents the individual soul as the object of knowledge. For of the soul also it can be said that 'this is the work,' if we understand by 'this' all meritorious and non-meritorious actions; and the soul also, in so far as it is the enjoyer, can be viewed as the maker of the persons enumerated in so far as they are instrumental to the soul's fruition. The complementary passage, moreover, contains an inferential mark of the individual soul. For Agâtasatru, in order to instruct Bâlâki about the 'maker of the persons' who had been proposed as the object of knowledge, calls a sleeping man by various names and convinces Bâlâki, by the circumstance that the sleeper does not hear his shouts, that the prâna and so on are not the enjoyers; he thereupon wakes the sleeping man by pushing him with his stick, and so makes Bâlâki comprehend that the being capable of fruition is the individual soul which is distinct from the prâna. A subsequent passage also contains an inferential mark of the individual soul, viz. 'And as the master feeds with his people, nay, as his people feed on the master, thus does this conscious Self feed with
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the other Selfs, thus those Selfs feed on the conscious Self' (Kau. Up. IV, 20). And as the individual soul is the support of the prâna, it may itself be called prâna.--We thus conclude that the passage under discussion refers either to the individual soul or to the chief vital air; but not to the Lord, of whom it contains no inferential marks whatever.
To this we make the following reply.--The Lord only can be the maker of the persons enumerated, on account of the force of the introductory part of the section. Bâlâki begins his colloquy with Agâtasatru with the offer, 'Shall I tell you Brahman?' Thereupon he enumerates some individual souls residing in the sun, the moon, and so on, which participate in the sight of the secondary Brahman, and in the end becomes silent. Agâtasatru then sets aside Bâlâki's doctrine as not referring to the chief Brahman--with the words, 'Vainly did you challenge me, saying, Shall I tell you Brahman,' &c.--and proposes the maker of all those individual souls as a new object of knowledge. If now that maker also were merely a soul participating in the sight of the secondary Brahman, the introductory statement which speaks of Brahman would be futile. Hence it follows that the highest Lord himself is meant.--None, moreover, but the highest Lord is capable of being the maker of all those persons as he only is absolutely independent.--Further, the clause 'of whom this is the work' does not refer either to the activity of motion nor to meritorious and non-meritorious actions; for neither of those two is the topic of discussion or has been mentioned previously. Nor can the term 'work' denote the enumerated persons, since the latter are mentioned separately--in the clause, 'He who is the maker of those persons'--and as inferential marks (viz. the neuter gender and the singular number of the word karman, work) contradict that assumption. Nor, again, can the term 'work' denote either the activity whose object the persons are, or the result of that activity, since those two are already implied in the mention of the agent (in the clause, 'He who is the maker'). Thus there remains no other alternative than to
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take the pronoun 'this' (in 'He of whom this is the work') as denoting the perceptible world and to understand the same world--as that which is made--by the term 'work.'--We may indeed admit that the world also is not the previous topic of discussion and has not been mentioned before; still, as no specification is mentioned, we conclude that the term 'work' has to be understood in a general sense, and thus denotes what first presents itself to the mind, viz. everything which exists in general. It is, moreover, not true that the world is not the previous topic of discussion; we are rather entitled to conclude from the circumstance that the various persons (in the sun, the moon, &c.) which constitute a part of the world had been specially mentioned before, that the passage in question is concerned with the whole world in general. The conjunction 'or' (in 'or he of whom,' &c.) is meant to exclude the idea of limited makership; so that the whole passage has to be interpreted as follows, 'He who is the maker of those persons forming a part of the world, or rather--to do away with this limitation--he of whom this entire world without any exception is the work.' The special mention made of the persons having been created has for its purpose to show that those persons whom Bâlâki had proclaimed to be Brahman are not Brahman. The passage therefore sets forth the maker of the world in a double aspect, at first as the creator of a special part of the world and thereupon as the creator of the whole remaining part of the world; a way of speaking analogous to such every-day forms of expression as, 'The wandering mendicants are to be fed, and then the Brâhmanas 1.' And that the maker of the world is the highest Lord is affirmed in all Vedânta-texts.
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It remains for us to refute the objection that on account of the inferential marks of the individual soul and the chief vital air, which are met with in the complementary passage, either the one or the other must be meant in the passage under discussion, and not the highest Lord.--We therefore remark that that objection has already been disposed of under I, 1, 31. There it was shown that from an interpretation similar to the one here proposed by the pûrvapakshin there would result a threefold meditation one having Brahman for its object, a second one directed on the individual soul, and a third one connected with the chief vital air. Now the same result would present itself in our case, and that would be unacceptable as we must infer from the introductory as well as the concluding clauses, that the passage under discussion refers to Brahman. With reference to the introductory clause this has been already proved; that the concluding passage also refers to Brahman, we infer from the fact of there being stated in it a pre-eminently high reward, 'Warding off all evil he who knows this obtains pre-eminence among all beings, sovereignty, supremacy.'--But if this is so, the sense of the passage under discussion is already settled by the discussion of the passage about Pratardana (I, 1, 31); why, then, the present Sûtra?--No, we reply; the sense of our passage is not yet settled, since under I, 1, 31 it has not been proved that the clause, 'Or he whose work is this,' refers to Brahman. Hence there arises again, in connexion with the present passage, a doubt whether the individual soul and the chief vital air may not be meant, and that doubt has again to be refuted.--The word prâna occurs, moreover, in the sense of Brahman, so in the passage, 'The mind settles down on prâna' (Kh. Up. VI, 8, 2).--The inferential marks of the individual soul also have, on account of the introductory and concluding clauses referring to Brahman, to be explained so as not to give rise to any discrepancy.
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the question and answer; and thus some also (read in their text).
Whether the passage under discussion is concerned with the individual soul or with Brahman, is, in the opinion of the teacher Gaimini, no matter for dispute, since the reference to the individual soul has a different purport, i.e. aims at intimating Brahman. He founds this his opinion on a question and a reply met with in the text. After Agâtasatru has taught Bâlâki, by waking the sleeping man, that the soul is different from the vital air, he asks the following question, 'Bâlâki, where did this person here sleep? Where was he? Whence came he thus back?' This question clearly refers to something different from the individual soul. And so likewise does the reply, 'When sleeping he sees no dream, then he becomes one with that prâna alone;' and, 'From that Self all prânas proceed, each towards its place, from the prânas the gods, from the gods the worlds.'--Now it is the general Vedânta doctrine that at the time of deep sleep the soul becomes one with the highest Brahman, and that from the highest Brahman the whole world proceeds, inclusive of prâna, and so on. When Scripture therefore represents as the object of knowledge that in which there takes place the deep sleep of the soul, characterised by absence of consciousness and utter tranquillity, i.e. a state devoid of all those specific cognitions which are produced by the limiting adjuncts of the soul, and from which the soul returns when the sleep is broken; we understand that the highest Self is meant.--Moreover, the Vâgasaneyisâkhâ, which likewise contains the colloquy of Bâlâki and Agâtasatru, clearly refers to the individual soul by means of the term, 'the person consisting of cognition' (vigñânamaya), and distinguishes from it the highest Self ('Where was then the person consisting of cognition? and from whence did he thus come back?' Bri. Up. II, 1, 16); and later on, in the reply to the above question, declares that 'the person consisting of cognition lies in the ether within the heart.' Now we know that the word 'ether' may be used to denote the highest Self, as, for instance, in
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the passage about the small ether within the lotus of the heart (Kh. Up. VIII, 1, 1). Further on the Bri. Up. says, 'All the Selfs came forth from that Self;' by which statement of the coming forth of all the conditioned Selfs it intimates that the highest Self is the one general cause.--The doctrine conveyed by the rousing of the sleeping person, viz. that the individual soul is different from the vital air, furnishes at the same time a further argument against the opinion that the passage under discussion refers to the vital air.
We read in the Brihadâranyaka, in the Maitreyî-brâhmana the following passage, 'Verily, a husband is not dear that you may love the husband, &c. &c.; verily, everything is not dear that you may love everything; but that you may love the Self therefore everything is dear. Verily, the Self is to be seen, to be heard, to be perceived, to be marked, O Maitreyî! When the Self has been seen, heard, perceived, and known, then all this is known' (Bri. Up. IV, 5, 6).--Here the doubt arises whether that which is represented as the object to be seen, to be heard, and so on, is the cognitional Self (the individual soul) or the highest Self.--But whence the doubt?--Because, we reply, the Self is, on the one hand, by the mention of dear things such as husband and so on, indicated as the enjoyer whence it appears that the passage refers to the individual soul; and because, on the other hand, the declaration that through the knowledge of the Self everything becomes known points to the highest Self.
The pûrvapakshin maintains that the passage refers to the individual soul, on account of the strength of the initial statement. The text declares at the outset that all the objects of enjoyment found in this world, such as husband, wife, riches, and so on, are dear on account of the Self, and thereby gives us to understand that the enjoying (i.e. the
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individual) Self is meant; if thereupon it refers to the Self as the object of sight and so on, what other Self should it mean than the same individual Self?--A subsequent passage also (viz. 'Thus does this great Being, endless, unlimited. consisting of nothing but knowledge, rise from out of these elements, and vanish again after them. When he has departed there is no more knowledge'), which describes how the great Being under discussion rises, as the Self of knowledge, from the elements, shows that the object of sight is no other than the cognitional Self, i.e. the individual soul. The concluding clause finally, 'How, O beloved, should he know the knower?' shows, by means of the term 'knower,' which denotes an agent, that the individual soul is meant. The declaration that through the cognition of the Self everything becomes known must therefore not be interpreted in the literal sense, but must be taken to mean that the world of objects of enjoyment is known through its relation to the enjoying soul.
To this we make the following reply.--The passage makes a statement about the highest Self, on account of the connected meaning of the entire section. If we consider the different passages in their mutual connexion, we find that they all refer to the highest Self. After Maitreyî has heard from Yâgñavalkya that there is no hope of immortality by wealth, she expresses her desire of immortality in the words, 'What should I do with that by which I do not become immortal? What my Lord knoweth tell that to me; and thereupon Yâgñavalkya expounds to her the knowledge of the Self. Now Scripture as well as Smriti declares that immortality is not to be reached but through the knowledge of the highest Self.--The statement further that through the knowledge of the Self everything becomes known can be taken in its direct literal sense only if by the Self we understand the highest cause. And to take it in a non-literal sense (as the pûrvapakshin proposes) is inadmissible, on account of the explanation given of that statement in a subsequent passage, viz. 'Whosoever looks for the Brahman class elsewhere than in the Self, is abandoned by the Brahman class.' Here it is said that whoever
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erroneously views this world with its Brahmans and so on, as having an independent existence apart from the Self, is abandoned by that very world of which he has taken an erroneous view; whereby the view that there exists any difference is refuted. And the immediately subsequent clause, 'This everything is the Self,' gives us to understand that the entire aggregate of existing things is non-different from the Self; a doctrine further confirmed by the similes of the drum and so on.--By explaining further that the Self about which he had been speaking is the cause of the universe of names, forms, and works ('There has been breathed forth from this great Being what we have as Rig-veda,' &c.) Yâgñavalkya again shows that it is the highest Self.--To the same conclusion he leads us by declaring, in the paragraph which treats of the natural centres of things, that the Self is the centre of the whole world with the objects, the senses and the mind, that it has neither inside nor outside, that it is altogether a mass of knowledge.--From all this it follows that what the text represents as the object of sight and so on is the highest Self.
We now turn to the remark made by the pûrvapakshin that the passage teaches the individual soul to be the object of sight, because it is, in the early part of the chapter denoted as something dear.
The fact that the text proclaims as the object of sight that Self which is denoted as something, dear indicates the fulfilment of the promise made in the passages, 'When the Self is known all this is known,' 'All this is that Self.' For if the individual soul were different from the highest Self, the knowledge of the latter would not imply the knowledge of the former, and thus the promise that through the knowledge of one thing everything is to be known would not be fulfilled. Hence the initial
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statement aims at representing the individual Self and the highest Self as non-different for the purpose of fulfilling the promise made.--This is the opinion of the teacher Âsmarathya 1.
Footnotes
277:1 The comment of the Bhâmatî on the Sûtra runs as follows: As the sparks issuing from a fire are not absolutely different from the fire, because they participate in the nature of the fire; and, on the other hand, are not absolutely non-different from the fire, because in that case they could be distinguished neither from the fire nor from each other; so the individual souls also--which are effects of Brahman--are neither absolutely different from Brahman, for that would mean that they are not of the nature of intelligence; nor absolutely non-different from Brahman, because in that case they could not be distinguished from each other, and because, if they were identical with Brahman and therefore omniscient, it would be useless to give them any instruction. Hence the individual souls are somehow different from Brahman and somehow non-different.--The technical name of the doctrine here represented by Âsmarathya is bhedâbhedavâda.The individual soul which is inquinated by the contact with its different limiting adjuncts, viz. body, senses, and mind (mano-buddhi), attains through the instrumentality of knowledge, meditation, and so on, a state of complete serenity, and thus enables itself, when passing at some future time out of the body, to become one with the highest Self; hence the initial statement in which it is represented as non-different from the highest Self. This is the opinion of the teacher Audulomi.--Thus Scripture says, 'That serene being arising from this body appears in its own form as soon as it has approached the highest light' (Kh. Up. VIII, 12, 3).--In another place Scripture intimates, by means of the simile of the rivers, that name and form abide in the individual soul, 'As
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the flowing rivers disappear in the sea, having lost their name and their form, thus a wise man freed from name and form goes to the divine Person who is greater than the great' (Mu. Up. III, 2, 8). I.e. as the rivers losing the names and forms abiding in them disappear in the sea, so the individual soul also losing the name and form abiding in it becomes united with the highest person. That the latter half of the passage has the meaning here assigned to it, follows from the parallelism which we must assume to exist between the two members of the comparison 1.
Footnotes
278:1 Bhâmatî: The individual soul is absolutely different from the highest Self; it is inquinated by the contact with its different limiting adjuncts. But it is spoken of, in the Upanishad, as non-different from the highest Self because after having purified itself by means of knowledge and meditation it may pass out of the body and become one with the highest Self. The text of the Upanishad thus transfers a future state of non-difference to that time when difference actually exists. Compare the saying of the Pâñkarâtrikas: 'Up to the moment of emancipation being reached the soul and the highest Self are different. But the emancipated soul is no longer different from the highest Self, since there is no further cause of difference.'--The technical name of the doctrine advocated by Audulomi is satyabhedavâda.Because the highest Self exists also in the condition of the individual soul, therefore, the teacher Kâsakritsna thinks, the initial statement which aims at intimating the non-difference of the two is possible. That the highest Self only is that which appears as the individual soul, is evident from the Brâhmana-passage, 'Let me enter into them with this living Self and evolve names and forms,' and similar passages. We have also mantras to the same effect, for instance, 'The wise one who, having produced all forms and made all names, sits calling the things by their names' (Taitt. Âr. III, 12, 7) 2.
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[paragraph continues] And where Scripture relates the creation of fire and the other elements, it does not at the same time relate a separate creation of the individual soul; we have therefore no right to look on the soul as a product of the highest Self, different from the latter.--In the opinion of the teacher Kâsakritsna the non-modified highest Lord himself is the individual soul, not anything else. Âsmarathya, although meaning to say that the soul is not (absolutely) different from the highest Self, yet intimates by the expression, 'On account of the fulfilment of the promise'--which declares a certain mutual dependence--that there does exist a certain relation of cause and effect between the highest Self and the individual soul 1. The opinion of Audulomi again clearly implies that the difference and non-difference of the two depend on difference of condition 2. Of these three opinions we conclude that the one held by Kâsakritsna accords with Scripture, because it agrees with what all the Vedânta-texts (so, for instance, the passage, 'That art thou') aim at inculcating. Only on the opinion of Kâsakritsna immortality can be viewed as the result of the knowledge of the soul; while it would be impossible to hold the same view if the soul were a modification (product) of the Self and as such liable to lose its existence by being merged in its causal substance. For the same reason, name and form cannot abide in the soul (as was above attempted to prove by means of the simile of the rivers), but abide in the limiting adjunct and are ascribed to the soul itself in a figurative sense only. For the same reason the origin of the souls from the highest Self, of which Scripture speaks in some places as analogous to the issuing of sparks from the fire, must be viewed as based only on the limiting adjuncts of the soul.
The last three Sutras have further to be interpreted so as to furnish replies to the second of the pûrvapakshin's arguments, viz. that the Brihadâranyaka passage represents as
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the object of sight the individual soul, because it declares that the great Being which is to be seen arises from out of these elements. 'There is an indication of the fulfilment of the promise; so Âsmarathya thinks.' The promise is made in the two passages, 'When the Self is known, all this is known,' and 'All this is that Self.' That the Self is everything, is proved by the declaration that the whole world of names, forms, and works springs from one being, and is merged in one being 1; and by its being demonstrated, with the help of the similes of the drum, and so on, that effect and cause are non-different. The fulfilment of the promise is, then, finally indicated by the text declaring that that great Being rises, in the form of the individual soul, from out of these elements; thus the teacher Âsmarathya thinks. For if the soul and the highest Self are non-different, the promise that through the knowledge of one everything becomes known is capable of fulfilment.--'Because the soul when it will depart is such; thus Audulomi thinks.' The statement as to the non-difference of the soul and the Self (implied in the declaration that the great Being rises, &c.) is possible, because the soul when--after having purified itself by knowledge, and so on--it will depart from the body, is capable of becoming one with the highest Self. This is Audulomi's opinion.--'Because it exists in the condition of the soul; thus Kâsakritsna opines.' Because the highest Self itself is that which appears as the individual soul, the statement as to the non-difference of the two is well-founded. This is the view of the teacher Kâsakritsna.
But, an objection may be raised, the passage, 'Rising from out of these elements he vanishes again after them. When he has departed there is no more knowledge,' intimates the final destruction of the soul, not its identity with the highest Self!--By no means, we reply. The passage means to say
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only that on the soul departing from the body all specific cognition vanishes, not that the Self is destroyed. For an objection being raised--in the passage, 'Here thou hast bewildered me, Sir, when thou sayest that having departed there is no more knowledge'. Scripture itself explains that what is meant is not the annihilation of the Self, 'I say nothing that is bewildering. Verily, beloved, that Self is imperishable, and of an indestructible nature. But there takes place non-connexion with the mâtrâs.' That means: The eternally unchanging Self, which is one mass of knowledge, cannot possibly perish; but by means of true knowledge there is effected its dissociation from the mâtrâs, i.e. the elements and the sense organs, which are the product of Nescience. When the connexion has been solved, specific cognition, which depended on it, no longer takes place, and thus it can be said, that 'When he has departed there is no more knowledge.'
The third argument also of the pûrvapakshin, viz. that the word 'knower'--which occurs in the concluding passage, 'How should he know the knower?'--denotes an agent, and therefore refers to the individual soul as the object of sight, is to be refuted according to the view of Kâsakritsna.--Moreover, the text after having enumerated--in the passage, 'For where there is duality as it were, there one sees the other,' &c.--all the kinds of specific cognition which belong to the sphere of Nescience declares--in the subsequent passage, 'But when the Self only is all this, how should he see another?'--that in the sphere of true knowledge all specific cognition such as seeing, and so on, is absent. And, again, in order to obviate the doubt whether in the absence of objects the knower might not know himself, Yâgñavalkya goes on, 'How, O beloved, should he know himself, the knower?' As thus the latter passage evidently aims at proving the absence of specific cognition, we have to conclude that the word 'knower' is here used to denote that being which is knowledge, i.e. the Self.--That the view of Kâsakritsna is scriptural, we have already shown above. And as it is so, all the adherents of the Vedânta must admit that the difference of the soul and the highest Self is not
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real, but due to the limiting adjuncts, viz. the body, and so on, which are the product of name and form as presented by Nescience. That view receives ample confirmation from Scripture; compare, for instance, 'Being only, my dear, this was in the beginning, one, without a second' (Kh. Up. VI, 2, 1); 'The Self is all this' (Kh. Up. VII, 25, 2); 'Brahman alone is all this' (Mu. Up. II, 2, 11); 'This everything is that Self (Bri. Up. II, 4, 6); 'There is no other seer but he' (Bri. Up. III, 7, 23); 'There is nothing that sees but it' (Bri. Up. III, 8, 11).--It is likewise confirmed by Smriti; compare, for instance, 'Vâsudeva is all this' (Bha. Gî. VII, 19); 'Know me, O Bhârata, to be the soul in all bodies' (Bha. Gî. XIII, 2); 'He who sees the highest Lord abiding alike within all creatures' (Bha. Gî. XIII, 27).--The same conclusion is supported by those passages which deny all difference; compare, for instance, 'If he thinks, that is one and I another; he does not know' (Bri. Up. I, 4, 10); 'From death to death he goes who sees here any diversity' (Bri. Up. IV, 4, 19). And, again, by those passages which negative all change on the part of the Self; compare, for instance, 'This great unborn Self, undecaying, undying, immortal, fearless is indeed Brahman' (Bri. Up. IV, 24).--Moreover, if the doctrine of general identity were not true, those who are desirous of release could not be in the possession of irrefutable knowledge, and there would be no possibility of any matter being well settled; while yet the knowledge of which the Self is the object is declared to be irrefutable and to satisfy all desire, and Scripture speaks of those, 'Who have well ascertained the object of the knowledge of the Vedânta' (Mu. Up. III, 2, 6). Compare also the passage, 'What trouble, what sorrow can there be to him who has once beheld that unity?' (Is. Up. 7.)--And Smriti also represents the mind of him who contemplates the Self as steady (Bha. Gî. II, 54).
As therefore the individual soul and the highest Self differ in name only, it being a settled matter that perfect knowledge has for its object the absolute oneness of the two; it is senseless to insist (as some do) on a plurality of Selfs, and to maintain that the individual soul is different from the
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highest Self, and the highest Self from the individual soul. For the Self is indeed called by many different names, but it is one only. Nor does the passage, 'He who knows Brahman which is real, knowledge, infinite, as hidden in the cave' (Taitt. Up. II, 1), refer to some one cave (different from the abode of the individual soul) 1. And that nobody else but Brahman is hidden in the cave we know from a subsequent passage, viz. 'Having sent forth he entered into it' (Taitt. Up. II, 6), according to which the creator only entered into the created beings.--Those who insist on the distinction of the individual and the highest Self oppose themselves to the true sense of the Vedânta-texts, stand thereby in the way of perfect knowledge, which is the door to perfect beatitude, and groundlessly assume release to be something effected, and therefore non-eternal 2. (And if they attempt to show that moksha, although effected, is eternal) they involve themselves in a conflict with sound logic.
Footnotes
278:2 Compare the note to the same mantra as quoted above under I, 1, 11.279:1 And not the relation of absolute identity.
279:2 I.e. upon the state of emancipation and its absence.
280:1 Upapâditam keti, sarvasyâtmamâtratvam iti seshah. Upapâdanaprakâram sûkayati eketi. Sa yathârdrendhanâgner ityâdinaikaprasavatvam, yathâ sarvâsâm apâm ityâdinâ kaikapralayatvam sarvasyoktam. Ân. Gi.
283:1 So according to Go. Ân. and Ân. Gi., although their interpretations seem not to account sufficiently for the ekâm of the text.--Kâmkid evaikâm iti gîvasthânâd anyâm ity arthah. Go. Ân.--Gîvabhâvena pratibimbâdhârâtiriktâm ity arthah. Ân. Gi.
283:2 While release, as often remarked, is eternal, it being in fact not different from the eternally unchanging Brahman.
It has been said that, as practical religious duty has to be enquired into because it is the cause of an increase of happiness, so Brahman has to be enquired into because it is the cause of absolute beatitude. And Brahman has been defined as that from which there proceed the origination, sustentation, and retractation of this world. Now as this definition comprises alike the relation of substantial causality in which clay and gold, for instance, stand to golden ornaments and earthen pots, and the relation of operative
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causality in which the potter and the goldsmith stand to the things mentioned; a doubt arises to which of these two kinds the causality of Brahman belongs.
The pûrvapakshin maintains that Brahman, evidently is the operative cause of the world only, because Scripture declares his creative energy to be preceded by reflection. Compare, for instance, Pra. Up. VI, 3; 4: 'He reflected, he created prâna.' For observation shows that the action of operative causes only, such as potters and the like, is preceded by reflection, and moreover that the result of some activity is brought about by the concurrence of several factors 1. It is therefore appropriate that we should view the prime creator in the same light. The circumstance of his being known as 'the Lord' furnishes another argument. For lords such as kings and the son of Vivasvat are known only as operative causes, and the highest Lord also must on that account be viewed as an operative cause only.--Further, the effect of the creator's activity, viz. this world, is seen to consist of parts, to be non-intelligent and impure; we therefore must assume that its cause also is of the same nature; for it is a matter of general observation that cause and effect are alike in kind. But that Brahman does not resemble the world in nature, we know from many scriptural passages, such as 'It is without parts, without actions, tranquil, without fault, without taint' Sve. Up. VI, 19). Hence there remains no other alternative but to admit that in addition to Brahman there exists a material cause of the world of impure nature, such as is known from Smriti 2, and to limit the causality of Brahman, as declared by Scripture, to operative causality.
To this we make the following reply.--Brahman is to be acknowledged as the material cause as well as the operative cause; because this latter view does not conflict with the promissory statements and the illustrative instances. The promissory statement chiefly meant is the following one,
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[paragraph continues] 'Have you ever asked for that instruction by which that which is not heard becomes heard; that which is not perceived, perceived; that which is not known, known?'(Kh. Up. VI, 1, 3.) This passage intimates that through the cognition of one thing everything else, even if (previously) unknown, becomes known. Now the knowledge of everything is possible through the cognition of the material cause, since the effect is non-different from the material cause. On the other hand, effects are not non-different from their operative causes; for we know from ordinary experience that the carpenter, for instance, is different from the house he has built.--The illustrative example referred to is the one mentioned (Kh. Up. VI, 1, 4), 'My dear, as by one clod of clay all that is made of clay is known, the modification (i.e. the effect) being a name merely which has its origin in speech, while the truth is that it is clay merely;' which passage again has reference to the material cause. The text adds a few more illustrative instances of similar nature, 'As by one nugget of gold all that is made of gold is known; as by one pair of nail-scissors all that is made of iron is known.'--Similar promissory statements are made in other places also, for instance, 'What is that through which if it is known everything else becomes known?' (Mu. Up. I, 1, 3.) An illustrative instance also is given in the same place, 'As plants grow on the earth' (I, 1, 7).--Compare also the promissory statement in Bri. Up. IV, 5, 6, 'When the Self has been seen, heard, perceived, and known, then all this is known;' and the illustrative instance quoted (IV, 5, 8), 'Now as the sounds of a drum if beaten cannot be seized externally, but the sound is seized when the drum is seized or the beater of the drum.'--Similar promissory statements and illustrative instances which are to be found in all Vedânta-texts are to be viewed as proving, more or less, that Brahman is also the material cause of the world. The ablative case also in the passage, 'That from whence (yatah) these beings are born,' has to be considered as indicating the material cause of the beings, according to the grammatical rule, Pân. I, 4, 30.--That Brahman is at the same time the operative cause of the
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world, we have to conclude from the circumstance that there is no other guiding being. Ordinarily material causes, indeed, such as lumps of clay and pieces of gold, are dependent, in order to shape themselves into vessels and ornaments, on extraneous operative causes such as potters and goldsmiths; but outside Brahman as material cause there is no other operative cause to which the material cause could look; for Scripture says that previously to creation Brahman was one without a second.--The absence of a guiding principle other than the material cause can moreover be established by means of the argument made use of in the Sûtra, viz. accordance with the promissory statements and the illustrative examples. If there were admitted a guiding principle different from the material cause, it would follow that everything cannot be known through one thing, and thereby the promissory statements as well as the illustrative instances would be stultified.--The Self is thus the operative cause, because there is no other ruling principle, and the material cause because there is no other substance from which the world could originate.
The fact of the sacred texts declaring that the Self reflected likewise shows that it is the operative as well as the material cause. Passages like 'He wished, may I be many, may I grow forth,' and 'He thought, may I be many, may I grow forth,' show, in the first place, that the Self is the agent in the independent activity which is preceded by the Self's reflection; and, in the second place, that it is the material cause also, since the words 'May I be many' intimate that the reflective desire of multiplying itself has the inward Self for its object.
This Sûtra supplies a further argument for Brahman's
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being the general material cause.--Brahman is the material cause of the world for that reason also that the origination as well as the dissolution of the world is directly spoken of in the sacred texts as having Brahman for their material cause, 'All these beings take their rise from the ether and return into the ether' (Kh. Up. I, 9, 1). That that from which some other thing springs and into which it returns is the material cause of that other thing is well known. Thus the earth, for instance, is the material cause of rice, barley, and the like.--The word 'directly' (in the Sûtra) notifies that there is no other material cause, but that all this sprang from the ether only.--Observation further teaches that effects are not re-absorbed into anything else but their material causes.
Brahman is the material cause for that reason also that Scripture--in the passage, 'That made itself its Self' (Taitt. Up. II, 7)--represents the Self as the object of action as well as the agent.--But how can the Self which as agent was in full existence previously to the action be made out to be at the same time that which is effected by the action?--Owing to modification, we reply. The Self, although in full existence previously to the action, modifies itself into something special, viz. the Self of the effect. Thus we see that causal substances, such as clay and the like, are, by undergoing the process of modification, changed into their products.--The word 'itself' in the passage quoted intimates the absence of any other operative cause but the Self.
The word 'parinâmât' (in the Sûtra) may also be taken as constituting a separate Sûtra by itself, the sense of which would be: Brahman is the material cause of the world for that reason also, that the sacred text speaks of Brahman and its modification into the Self of its effect as co-ordinated, viz. in the passage, 'It became sat and tyat, defined and undefined' (Taitt. Up. II, 6).
Brahman is the material cause for that reason also that it is spoken of in the sacred texts as the source (yoni); compare, for instance, 'The maker, the Lord, the person who has his source in Brahman' (Mu. Up. III, i, 3); and 'That which the wise regard as the source of all beings' (Mu. Up. I, 1, 6). For that the word 'source' denotes the material cause is well known from the use of ordinary language; the earth, for instance, is called the yoni of trees and herbs. In some places indeed the word yoni means not source, but merely place; so, for instance, in the mantra, 'A yoni, O Indra, was made for you to sit down upon' (Rik. Samh. I, 104, 1). But that in the passage quoted it means 'source' follows from a complementary passage, 'As the spider sends forth and draws in its threads,' &c.--It is thus proved that Brahman is the material cause of the world.--Of the objection, finally, that in ordinary life the activity of operative causal agents only, such as potters and the like, is preceded by reflection, we dispose by the remark that, as the matter in hand is not one which can be known through inferential reasoning, ordinary experience cannot be used to settle it. For the knowledge of that matter we rather depend on Scripture altogether, and hence Scripture only has to be appealed to. And that Scripture teaches that the Lord who reflects before creation is at the same time the material cause, we have already explained. The subject will, moreover, be discussed more fully later on.
The doctrine according to which the pradhâna is the cause of the world has, in the Sûtras beginning with I, 1, 5, been again and again brought forward and refuted. The chief reason for the special attention given to that doctrine is that the Vedânta-texts contain some passages which, to people deficient in mental penetration, may appear to contain inferential marks pointing to it. The
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doctrine, moreover, stands somewhat near to the Vedânta doctrine since, like the latter, it admits the non-difference of cause and effect, and it, moreover, has been accepted by some of the authors of the Dharma-sûtras, such as Devala, and so on. For all these reasons we have taken special trouble to refute the pradhâna doctrine, without paying much attention to the atomic and other theories. These latter theories, however, must likewise be refuted, as they also are opposed to the doctrine of Brahman being the general cause, and as slow-minded people might think that they also are referred to in some Vedic passages. Hence the Sûtrakâra formally extends, in the above Sûtra, the refutation already accomplished of the pradhâna doctrine to all similar doctrines which need not be demolished in detail after their great protagonist, the pradhâna doctrine, has been so completely disposed of. They also are, firstly, not founded on any scriptural authority; and are, secondly, directly contradicted by various Vedic passages.--The repetition of the phrase 'are explained' is meant to intimate that the end of the adhyâya has been reached.
(My humble salutations to Sreeman George Thibaut for the collection)
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