Adhyaya I.
Pada I.
Pada II.
Pada III.
Pada IV.
AdhyIya II.
Pada I.
Pada II.
3 107 154 237 290 363 Transliteration of Oriental Alphabets adopted for the Trans¬ lations of the Sacred Books of the East...445 INTRODUCTION.
INTRODUCTION.
To the sacred literature of the Brahmans, in the strict sense of the term, i. e. to the Veda, there belongs a certain number of complementary works without whose assistance the student is, according to Hindu notions, unable to do more than commit the sacred texts to memory. In the first place all Vedic texts must, in order to be under¬ stood, be read together with running commentaries such as Saya;za 5 s commentaries on the Sa^hitas and Brahma^as, and the Bhashyas ascribed to.Sankara on the chief Upani- shads. But these commentaries do not by themselves conduce to a full comprehension of the contents of the sacred texts, since they confine themselves to explaining the meaning of each detached passage without investigating its relation to other passages, and the whole of which they form part; considerations of the latter kind are at any rate introduced occasionally only. The task of taking a com¬ prehensive view of the contents of the Vedic writings as a whole, of systematising what they present in an unsyste- matical form, of showing the mutual co-ordination or sub¬ ordination of single passages and sections, and of reconciling contradictions—which, according to the view of the orthodox commentators, can be apparent only—is allotted to a sepa¬ rate jastra or body of doctrine which is termed Mima^sa, i. e. the investigation or enquiry kclt iioxyv, viz. the enquiry into the connected meaning of the sacred texts.
Of this Mima^sa two branches have to be distinguished, the so-called earlier (purva) Mim 4 ^s 4, and the later (uttara) Mima^sa. The former undertakes to systematise the karmakcb^a, i. e. that entire portion of the Veda which is concerned with action, pre-eminently sacrificial action, and which comprises the Sawhitas and the Brahma^as exclusive of the Ara^yaka portions; the latter performs the same X VEDANTA-stjTRAS.
service with regard to the so-called gn&nakanda., i. e. that part of the Vedic writings which includes the Arazzyaka portions of the Brahmazzas, and a number of detached treatises called Upanishads. Its subject is not action but knowledge, viz. the knowledge of Brahman.
At what period these two ^astras first assumed a definite form, we are unable to ascertain. Discussions of the nature of those which constitute the subject-matter of the Purva Mimazzzsa must have arisen at a very early period, and the word Mimazzzsa itself together with its derivatives is already employed in the Brahmazzas to denote the doubts and discussions connected with certain contested points of ritual. The want of a body of definite rules prescribing how to act, i. e. how to perform the various sacrifices in full accordance with the teaching of the Veda, was indeed an urgent one, because it was an altogether practical want, continually pressing itself on the adhvaryus engaged in ritualistic duties. And the task of establishing such rules was moreover a comparatively limited and feasible one; for the members of a certain Vedic.rakha or school had to do no more than to digest thoroughly their own brahmazza and sazzzhita, without being under any obligation of reconciling with the teaching of their own books the occasionally con¬ flicting rules implied in the texts of other Vakhas. It was assumed that action, as being something which depends on the will and choice of man, admits of alternatives, so that a certain sacrifice may be performed in different ways by members of different Vedic schools, or even by the followers of one and the same sakhL The Uttara Mimazzzsa-^astra may be supposed to have originated considerably later than the Purva Mimazzzsa. In the first place, the texts with which it is concerned doubtless constitute the latest branch of Vedic literature. And in the second place, the subject-matter of those texts did not call for a systematical treatment with equal urgency, as it was in no way connected with practice; the mental attitude of the authors of the Upanishads, who in their lucubrations on Brahman and the soul aim at nothing less than at definite¬ ness and coherence, may have perpetuated itself through INTRODUCTION.
XI many generations without any great inconvenience resulting therefrom.
But in the long run two causes must have acted with ever-increasing force, to give an impulse to the systematic working up of the teaching of the Upanishads also. The followers of the different Vedic Vakhas no doubt recog¬ nised already at an early period the truth that, while conflicting statements regarding the details of a sacrifice can be got over by the assumption of a vikalpa, i. e. an optional proceeding, it is not so with regard to such topics as the nature of Brahman, the relation to it of the human soul, the origin of the physical universe, and the like. Concerning them, one opinion only can be the true one, and it therefore becomes absolutely incumbent on those, who look on the whole body of the Upanishads as revealed truth, to demonstrate that their teaching forms a con¬ sistent whole free from all contradictions. In addition there supervened the external motive that, while the karma- k&nda, of the Veda concerned only the higher castes of brahmanically constituted society, on which it enjoins certain sacrificial performances connected with certain re¬ wards, the ^Tzanaka/^a, as propounding a certain theory of the world, towards which any reflecting person inside or outside the pale of the orthodox community could not but take up a definite position, must soon have become the object of criticism on the part of those who held different views on religious and philosophic things, and hence stood in need of systematic defence.
At present there exists a vast literature connected with the two branches of the Mima^sa. We have, on the one hand, all those works which constitute the Purva Mima/^sa-.s*astra—or as it is often, shortly but not accurately, termed, the Mima/^sa- i-astra—and, on the other hand, all those works which are commonly comprised under the name Vedanta-^astra. At the head of this extensive literature there stand two collec¬ tions of Sutras (i. e. short aphorisms constituting in their totality a complete body of doctrine upon some subject), whose reputed authors are Uaimini and B&daraya^a. There can, however, be no doubt that the composition of those two Xll VEDANTA-SfjTRAS.
collections of Sutras was preceded by a long series of pre¬ paratory literary efforts of which they merely represent the highly condensed outcome. This is rendered probable by the analogy of other.rastras, as well as by the exhaustive thoroughness with which the Sutras perform their task of systematising the teaching of the Veda, and is further proved by the frequent references which the Sutras make to the views of earlier teachers. If we consider merely the preserved monuments of Indian literature, the Stitras (of the two Mimosas as well as of other Astras) mark the begin¬ ning; if we, however, take into account what once existed, although it is at present irretrievably lost, we observe that they occupy a strictly central position, summarising, on the one hand, a series of early literary essays extending over many generations, and forming, on the other hand, the head spring of an ever broadening activity of commentators as well as virtually independent writers, which reaches down to our days, and may yet have some future before itself.
The general scope of the two Mima^si-sutras and their relation to the Veda have been indicated in what precedes. A difference of some importance between the two has, how¬ ever, to be noted in this connexion. The systematisation of the karmaka^a of the Veda led to the elaboration of two classes of works, viz. the Kalpa-sutras on the one hand, and the Purva Mim&^sa-sutras on the other hand. The former give nothing but a description as concise as possible of the sacrifices enjoined in the Brahma^as; while the latter discuss and establish the general principles which the author of a Kalpa-sfitra has to follow, if he wishes to render his rules strictly conformable to the teaching of the Veda. The ^anakd^a of the Veda, on the other hand, is system¬ atised in a single work, viz. the Uttara Mima^sa or Ved&nta- sutras, which combine the two tasks of concisely stating the teaching of the Veda, and of argumentatively establishing the special interpretation of the Veda adopted in the S&tras. This difference may be accounted for by two reasons. In the first place, the contents of the karmaki^rfa, as being of an entirely practical nature, called for summaries such as the Kalpa-sutras, from which all burdensome discussions of INTRODUCTION.
Xlll method are excluded; while there was no similar reason for the separation of the two topics in the case of the purely theoretical science of Brahman. And, in the second place, the Vedanta-sutras throughout presuppose the Purva Mima^sa-shtras, and may therefore dispense with the discussion of general principles and methods already esta¬ blished in the latter.
The time at which the two Mima^sa-sutras were com¬ posed we are at present unable to fix with any certainty; a few remarks on the subject will, however, be made later on. Their outward form is that common to all the so- called Sutras which aims at condensing a given body of doctrine in a number of concise aphoristic sentences, and often even mere detached words in lieu of sentences. Besides the Mima^sa-sutras this literary form is common to the fundamental works on the other philosophic systems, on the Vedic sacrifices, on domestic ceremonies, on sacred law, on grammar, and on metres. The two Mtma^sa- sfttras occupy, however, an altogether exceptional position in point of style. All Sutras aim at conciseness; that is clearly the reason to which this whole species of literary composition owes its existence. This their aim they reach by the rigid exclusion of all words which can possibly be spared, by the careful avoidance of all unnecessary repeti¬ tions, and, as in the case of the grammatical Sutras, by the employment of an arbitrarily coined terminology which substitutes single syllables for entire words or combination of words. At the same time the manifest intention of the Sutra writers is to express themselves with as much clear¬ ness as the conciseness affected by them admits of. The aphorisms are indeed often concise to excess, but not otherwise intrinsically obscure, the manifest care of the writers being to retain what is essential in a given phrase, and to sacrifice only what can be supplied, although perhaps not without difficulty, and an irksome strain of memory and reflection. Hence the possibility of understanding without a commentary a very considerable portion at any rate of the ordinary Sutras. Altogether different is the case of the two Mima/^sa-sutras. There scarcely one single Sutra is XIV VEDANTA-S^TRAS.
intelligible without a commentary. The most essential words are habitually dispensed with; nothing is, for instance, more common than the simple omission of the subject or predicate of a sentence. And when here and there a Sutra occurs whose words construe without anything having to be supplied, the phraseology is so eminently vague and obscure that without the help derived from a commentary we should be unable to make out to what subject the Sutra refers. When undertaking to translate either of the Mima^sa- sutras we therefore depend altogether on commentaries; and hence the question arises which of the numerous com¬ mentaries extant is to be accepted as a guide to their right understanding.
The commentary here selected for translation, together with Badaraya;za's Sutras 1 (to which we shall henceforth confine our attention to the exclusion of Gaimini’s Purva Mima;^sa-sfitras), is the one composed by the celebrated theologian.Sankara or, as he is commonly called, Sankar&- £arya. There are obvious reasons for this selection. In the first place, the Sankara-bhashya represents the so- called orthodox side of Brahmanical theology which strictly upholds the Brahman or highest Self of the Upanishads as something different from, and in fact immensely superior to, the divine beings such as Vishnu or Siva, which, for many centuries, have been the chief objects of popular worship in India. In the second place, the doctrine advocated by Sankara is, from a purely philosophical point of view and apart from all theological considerations, the most im¬ portant and interesting one which has arisen on Indian soil; neither those forms of the Vedanta which diverge from the view represented by Sankara nor any of the non-Vedantic systems can be compared with the so-called orthodox Vedanta in boldness, depth, and subtlety of speculation. In the third place, Sankara’s bhashya is, as far as we know, the oldest of the extant commentaries, and relative antiquity is at any rate one of the circumstances which have to be 1 The Sutras in which the gnknak&nda. of the Veda is systematised go by various names, being called either Vedanta-sutras, or Uttara Mimawsa-sutras, or Brahma-sutras, or.Sariraka Mimawsa-sutras.
INTRODUCTION.
XV taken into account, although, it must be admitted, too much weight may easily be attached to it. The Sankara-bhashya further is the authority most generally deferred to in India as to the right understanding of the Vedanta-sutras, and ever since Sankara’s time the majority of the best thinkers of India have been men belonging to his school. If in addition to all this we take into consideration the intrinsic merits of Sankara’s work which, as a piece of philo¬ sophical argumentation and theological apologetics, un¬ doubtedly occupies a high rank, the preference here given to it will be easily understood.
But to the European—or, generally, modern—translator of the Vedanta-sutras with Sankara’s commentary another question will of course suggest itself at once, viz. whether or not Sankaras explanations faithfully render the intended meaning of the author of the Sutras. To the Indian PaWit of Sankara’s school this question has become an indifferent one, or, to state the case more accurately, he objects to its being raised, as he looks on Sankara’s authority as standing above doubt and dispute. When pressed to make good his position he will, moreover, most probably not enter into any detailed comparison of Sankara’s com¬ ments with the text of Badar^ya^a’s Sutras, but will rather endeavour to show on speculative grounds that Sankara’s philosophical view is the only true one, whence it of course follows that it accurately represents the meaning of Bada- raya/za, who himself must necessarily be assumed to have taught the true doctrine. But on the modern investigator, who neither can consider himself bound by the authority of a name however great, nor is likely to look to any Indian system of thought for the satisfaction of his speculative wants, it is clearly incumbent not to acquiesce from the out¬ set in the interpretations given of the Vedanta-sutras—and the Upanishads—by Sankara and his school, but to submit them, as far as that can be done, to a critical investigation.
This is a task which would have to be undertaken even if Sankara’s views as to the true meaning of the Sutras and Upanishads had never been called into doubt on Indian soil, although in that case it could perhaps hardly be entered XVI vedanta-s£jtras.
upon with much hope of success; but it becomes much more urgent, and at the same time more feasible, when we meet in India itself with systems claiming to be Vedantic and based on interpretations of the Sfitras and Upanishads more or less differing from those of.Sankara. The claims of those systems to be in the possession of the right under¬ standing of the fundamental authorities of the Vedanta must at any rate be examined, even if we should finally be compelled to reject them.
It appears that already at a very early period the Vedanta-sutras had come to be looked upon as an authori¬ tative work, not to be neglected by any who wished to affiliate their own doctrines to the Veda. At present, at any rate, there are very few Hindu sects not interested in showing that their distinctive tenets are countenanced by Badaraya^a’s teaching. Owing to this the commentaries on the Sutras have in the course of time become very numerous, and it is at present impossible to give a full and accurate enumeration even of those actually existing, much less of those referred to and quoted. Mr. Fitz-Edward Hall, in his Bibliographical Index, mentions fourteen com¬ mentaries, copies of which had been inspected by himself. Some among these (as, for instance, Ramanuja’s Vedanta- sara, No. XXXV) are indeed not commentaries in the strict sense of the word, but rather systematic expositions of the doctrine supposed to be propounded in the Sutras; but, on the other hand, there are in existence several true commen¬ taries which had not been accessible to Fitz-Edward Hall. It would hardly be practical—and certainly not feasible in this place—to submit all the existing bhas to a critical enquiry at once. All we can do here is to single out one or a few of the more important ones, and to compare their interpretations with those given by 5ankara, and with the text of the Sutras themselves.
The bhashya, which in this connexion is the first to press itself upon our attention, is the one composed by the famous Vaish^ava theologian and philosopher Ramanuja, who is supposed to have lived in the twelfth century. The Rama¬ nuja or, as it is often called, the.Sri-bha appears to be INTRODUCTION.
XVII the oldest commentary extant next to.Sankara’s. It is further to be noted that the sect of the R&manuj*as occupies a pre-eminent position among the Vaish^ava sects which themselves, in their totality, may claim to be considered the most important among all Hindu sects. The intrinsic value of the Sri-bhashya moreover is — as every student ac¬ quainted with it will be ready to acknowledge—a very high one; it strikes one throughout as a very solid performance due to a writer of extensive learning and great power of argu¬ mentation, and in its polemic parts, directed chiefly against the school of.Sankara, it not unfrequently deserves to be called brilliant even. And in addition to all this it shows evident traces of being not the mere outcome of Ramanuja’s individual views, but of resting on an old and weighty tradition.
This latter point is clearly of the greatest importance. If it could be demonstrated or even rendered probable only that the oldest bhashya which we possess, i. e. the San- kara-bhashya, represents an uninterrupted and uniform tradition bridging over the interval between Badaraya^a, the reputed author of the Sutras, and Sankara; and if, on the other hand, it could be shown that the more modern bhashyas are not supported by old tradition, but are nothing more than bold attempts of clever sectarians to force an old work of generally recognised authority into the service of their individual tenets; there would certainly be no reason for us to raise the question whether the later bhashyas can help us in making out the true meaning of the Sutras. All we should have to do in that case would be to accept Sankara's interpretations as they stand, or at the utmost to attempt to make out, if at all possible, by a careful comparison of Sankara’s bhashya with the text of the Sutras, whether the former in all cases faithfully repre¬ sents the purport of the latter.
In the most recent book of note which at all enters into the question as to how far we have to accept Sankara as a guide to the right understanding of the Sutras (Mr. A. Gough’s Philosophy of the Upanishads) the view is maintained (pp. 339 ff.) that Sankara is the generally recognised expositor [34] b XV111 VEDANTA-St)TRAS.
of true Vedanta doctrine, that that doctrine was handed down by an unbroken series of teachers intervening between him and the Sutrakara, and that there existed from the beginning only one Vedctnta doctrine, agreeing in all essen¬ tial points with the doctrine known to us from.Sankara’s writings. Mr. Gough undertakes to prove this view, firstly, by a comparison of Sankara’s system with the teaching of the Upanishads themselves; and, secondly, by a comparison of the purport of the Sutras—as far as that can be made out independently of the commentaries—with the interpre¬ tations given of them by.Sankara. To both these points we shall revert later on. Meanwhile, I only wish to remark concerning the former point that, even if we could show with certainty that all the Upanishads propound one and the same doctrine, there yet remains the undeniable fact of our being confronted by a considerable number of essen¬ tially differing theories, all of which claim to be founded on the Upanishads. And with regard to the latter point I have to say for the present that, as long as we have only.Sankara’s bha before us, we are naturally inclined to find in the Sutras — which, taken by them¬ selves, are for the greater part unintelligible—the meaning which.Sankara ascribes to them; while a reference to other bhashyas may not impossibly change our views at once.— Meanwhile, we will consider the question as to the unbroken uniformity of Vedantic tradition from another point of view, viz. by enquiring whether or not the Sutras themselves, and the.Sankara-bhashya, furnish any indications of there having existed already at an early time essentially different Vedantic systems or lines of Vedantic speculation.
Beginning with the Sutras, we find that they supply ample evidence to the effect that already at a very early time, viz. the period antecedent to the final composition of the Vedanta-sutras in their present shape, there had arisen among the chief doctors of the Vedanta differences of opinion, bearing not only upon minor points of doctrine, but affecting the most essential parts of the system. In addition to Badaraya/za himself, the reputed author of the INTRODUCTION.
XIX Sutras, the latter quote opinions ascribed to the following teachers: Atreya, A^marathya, Aru/ulomi, Karsh/za^ini, Karakrztsna, £aimini, B&dari. Among the passages where diverging views of those teachers are recorded and con¬ trasted three are of particular importance. Firstly, a passage in the fourth pada of the fourth adhyaya (Sutras 5-7), where the opinions of various teachers concerning the characteristics of the released soul are given, and where the important discrepancy is noted that, according to Au^ulomi, its only characteristic is thought (^aitanya), while £aimini maintains that it possesses a number of exalted qualities, and Bcidarciya/za declares himself in favour of a combination of those two views.—The second passage occurs in the third p&da of the fourth adhyaya (Sutras 7 ” r 4 ^ where Gaimini maintains that the soul of him who possesses the lower know¬ ledge of Brahman goes after death to the highest Brahman, while Badari—whose opinion is endorsed by Sankara— teaches that it repairs to the lower Brahman only.—Finally, the third and most important passage is met with in the fourth p&da of the first adhyaya (Sutras 20-22), where the question is discussed why in a certain passage of the Brfhadara^yaka Brahman is referred to in terms which are strictly applicable to the individual soul only. In con¬ nexion therewith the Stitras quote the views of three ancient teachers about the relation in which the individual soul stands to Brahman. According to A^marathya (if we accept the interpretation of his view given by Sankara and Sankara’s commentators) the soul stands to Brahman in the bhedabheda relation, i.e. it is neither absolutely different nor absolutely non-different from it, as sparks are from fire. Au^ulomi, on the other hand, teaches that the soul is alto¬ gether different from Brahman up to the time when ob¬ taining final release it is merged in it; and Klrakrztsna finally upholds the doctrine that the soul is absolutely non- different from Brahman, which in some way or other presents itself as the individual soul.
That the ancient teachers, the ripest outcome of whose speculations and discussions is embodied in the Vedanta- sutras, disagreed among themselves on points of vital b 2 XX VEDANTA-SUTRAS.
importance is sufficiently proved by the three passages quoted. The one quoted last is specially significant as showing that recognised authorities—deemed worthy of being quoted in the Sutras—denied that doctrine on which the whole system of.Sankara hinges, viz. the doctrine of the absolute identity of the individual soul with Brahman.
Turning next to the Sankara-bha itself, we there also meet with indications that the Ved&ntins were divided among themselves on important points of dogma. These indications are indeed not numerous: Sankara does not on the whole impress one as an author particularly anxious to strengthen his own case by appeals to ancient authorities, a peculiarity of his which later writers of hostile tendencies have not failed to remark and criticise. But yet more than once Sankara also refers to the opinion of £ another/viz., commentator of the Sutras, and in several places Sankara’s commentators explain that the £ other ’ meant is the VWtti- k&ra (about whom more will be said shortly). Those references as a rule concern minor points of exegesis, and hence throw little or no light on important differences of dogma; but there are two remarks of Sankara’s at any rate which are of interest in this connexion. The one is made with reference to Sfitras 7-14 of the third pada of the fourth adhyaya; £ some/ he says there, £ declare those Sutras, which I look upon as setting forth the siddhanta view, to state merely the purvapaksha; ’ a difference of opinion which, as we have seen above, affects the important question as to the ultimate fate of those who have not reached the knowledge of the highest Brahman.—And under I, 3, 19 Sankara, after having explained at length that the individual soul as such cannot claim any reality, but is real only in so far as it is identical with Brahman, adds the following words, £ apare tu vadina^ paramarthikam eva gawam rupam iti manyante asmadiya^ ka ke£it/ i.e.
£ other theorisers again, and among them some of ours, are of opinion that the individual soul as such is real.’ The term £ ours/ here made use of, can denote only the Aupanishadas or Vedantins, and it thus appears that Sankara himself INTRODUCTION.
XXI was willing to class under the same category himself and philosophers who—as in later times the Ramanujas and others—looked upon the individual soul as not due to the fictitious limitations of M&y&, but as real in itself; whatever may be the relation in which they considered it to stand to the highest Self.
From what precedes it follows that the Vedantins of the school to which Sankara himself belonged acknowledged the existence of Vedantic teaching of a type essentially different from their own. We must now proceed to enquire whether the RcLmanug*a system, which likewise claims to be Vedcinta, and to be founded on the Vedanta-sutras, has any title to be considered an ancient system and the heir of a respectable tradition.
It appears that R^manu^a claims—and by Hindu writers is generally admitted—to follow in his bhashya the autho¬ rity of Bodhayana, who had composed a vrztti on the Sutras. Thus we read in the beginning of the Sri-bhashya (Pandit, New Series, VII, p. 163), ‘ Bhagavad-bodhayana- kritam vistir/zam brahmasfitra-vrftti;^ purv&kavyaA samki- kshipus tanmatanus&rezza sutrakshara/zi vyakhyasyante/ Whether the Bodhayana to whom that vritti is ascribed is to be identified with the author of the Kalpa-sfitra, and other works, cannot at present be decided. But that an ancient vritti on the Sutras connected with BodMyana’s name actually existed, there is not any reason to doubt. Short quotations from it are met with in a few places of the Sri-bMshya, and, as we have seen above, Sankara’s commentators state that their author’s polemical remarks are directed against the Vnttikara. In addition to Bodhayana, Ramanuja appeals to quite a series of ancient teachers—purva^ 4 ry 4 s—who carried on the true tradition as to the teaching of the Vedanta and the meaning of the Sutras. In the Ved&rthasangraha —a work composed by R 4 manu^*a himself—we meet in one place with the enumeration of the following authorities: Bodhayana, Tanka, DramLTa, Guhadeva, Kapardin, Bharu^i, and quotations from the writings of some of these are not unfrequent in the Vedarthasangraha, as well as the Srixxii VEDANTA-S^TRAS.