From this it follows that the fruit of the knowledge of Brahman must be of a different nature from the fruit of the knowledge of duty which depends on the performance of actions 1.—We reply that it must not be such because the makes it eight-cornered/ has a purpose only as being supplementary to the injunction ‘ he ties the victim to the sacrificial post/ 1 If the fruits of the two jastras were not of a different nature, there would be no reason for the distinction of two jastras; if they 25 Vedanta-texts give information about Brahman only in so far as it is connected with injunctions of actions. We meet with injunctions of the following kind, ‘ Verily the Self is to be seen’ ( Bri. Up. II, 4, 5); ‘The Self which is free from sin that it is which we must search out, that it is which we must try to understand ’ ( Kh. Up. VIII, 7,1); * Let a man worship him as Self’ (Bri. Up. I, 4, 7); ‘ Let a man worship the Self only as his true state 5 (Bri. Up. 1, 4,15); ‘ He who knows Brahman becomes Brahman, (Mu. Up. Ill, 2, 9). These injunctions rouse in us the desire to know what that Brahman is. It, therefore, is the task of the Ved&nta-texts to set forth Brahman’s nature, and they perform that task by teaching us that Brahman is eternal, all-knowing, absolutely self-sufficient, ever pure, intelli¬ gent and free, pure knowledge, absolute bliss. From the devout meditation on this Brahman there results as its fruit, final release, which, although not to be discerned in the ordinary way, is discerned by means of the ^astra. If, on the other hand, the Vedanta-texts were considered to have no reference to injunctions of actions, but to contain statements about mere (accomplished) things, just as if one were saying ‘ the earth comprises seven dvipas,’ ‘that king is marching on,’ they would be pur¬ portless, because then they could not possibly be connected with something to be shunned or endeavoured after.—Per¬ haps it will here be objected that sometimes a mere state¬ ment about existent things has a purpose, as, for instance, the affirmation, ‘This is a rope, not a snake,’ serves the purpose of removing the fear engendered by an erroneous opinion, and that so likewise the Veddnta-passages making statements about the non-transmigrating Self, have a pur¬ port of their own (without reference to any action), viz. in so far as they remove the erroneous opinion of the Self being liable to transmigration.—We reply that this might are of a different nature, it cannot be said that the knowledge of Brahman is enjoined for the purpose of final release, in the same way as sacrifices are enjoined for the purpose of obtaining the heavenly world and the like.
26 vedanta-s6tras.
be so if just as the mere hearing of the true nature of the rope dispels the fear caused by the imagined snake, so the mere hearing of the true nature of Brahman would dispel the erroneous notion of one’s being subject to transmigration. But this is not the case; for we observe that even men to whom the true nature of Brahman has been stated continue to be affected by pleasure, pain, and the other qualities attaching to the transmigratory condition. Moreover, we see from the passage, Bri. Up. II, 4, 5 > ‘The Self is to be heard, to be considered, to be reflected upon,’ that con¬ sideration and reflection have to follow the mere hearing. From all this it results that the i'astra can be admitted as a means of knowing Brahman in so far only as the latter is connected with injunctions.
To all this, we, the Vedantins, make the following reply:—The preceding reasoning is not valid, on account of the different nature of the fruits of actions on the one side, and of the knowledge of Brahman on the other side. The enquiry into those actions, whether of body, speech, or mind, which are known from Sruti and Smrzti, and are comprised under the name c religious duty’ (dharma), is carried on in the Gaimini Sutra, which begins with the words ‘ then therefore the enquiry into duty; ’ the opposite of duty also (adharma), such as doing harm, &c., which is defined in the prohibitory injunctions, forms an object of enquiry to the end that it may be avoided. The fruits of duty, which is good, and its opposite, which is evil, both of which are defined by original Vedic statements, are generally known to be sensible pleasure and pain, which make them¬ selves felt to body, speech, and mind only, are produced by the contact of the organs of sense with the objects, and affect all animate beings from Brahman down to a tuft of grass. Scripture, agreeing with observation, states that there are differences in the degree of pleasure of all em¬ bodied creatures from men upward to Brahman. From those differences it is inferred that there are differences in the degrees of the merit acquired by actions in accord¬ ance with religious duty; therefrom again are inferred differences in degree between those qualified to perform 27 acts of religious duty. Those latter differences are more¬ over known to be affected by the desire of certain results (which entitles the man so desirous to perform certain religious acts), worldly possessions, and the like. It is further known from Scripture that those only who perform sacrifices proceed, in consequence of the pre-eminence of their knowledge and meditation, on the northern path (of the sun; Kh. Up. V, 10, 1), while mere minor offerings, works of public utility and alms, only lead through smoke and the other stages to the southern path. And that there also (viz. in the moon which is finally reached by those who have passed along the southern path) there are degrees of pleasure and the means of pleasure is understood from the passage 4 Having dwelt there till their works are con¬ sumed.’ Analogously it is understood that the different degrees of pleasure which are enjoyed by the embodied creatures, from man downward to the inmates of hell and to immovable things, are the mere effects of religious merit as defined in Vedic injunctions. On the other hand, from the different degrees of pain endured by higher and lower embodied creatures, there is inferred difference of degree in its cause, viz. religious demerit as defined in the pro¬ hibitory injunctions, and in its agents. This difference in the degree of pain and pleasure, which has for its antecedent embodied existence, and for its cause the difference of de¬ gree of merit and demerit of animated beings, liable to faults such as ignorance and the like, is well known—from vSruti, Smrzti, and reasoning—to be non-eternal, of a fleeting, changing nature (sa^sara). The following text, for instance, 4 As long as he is in the body he cannot get free from pleasure and pain ’ {Kh. Up. VIII, 12, 1), refers to the sa//z- sara-state as described above. From the following passage, on the other hand, 4 When he is free from the body then neither pleasure nor pain touches him,’ which denies the touch of pain or pleasure, we learn that the unembodied state called ‘final release’ (moksha) is declared not to be the effect of religious merit as defined by Vedic injunctions. For if it were the effect of merit it would not be denied that it is subject to pain and pleasure. Should it be said 28 VEDANTA-SUTRAS.
that the very circumstance of its being an unembodied state is the effect of merit, we reply that that cannot be, since Scripture declares that state to be naturally and originally an unembodied one. ‘The wise who knows the Self as bodiless within the bodies, as unchanging among changing things, as great and omnipresent does never grieve’ (Ka.Up. II, 22); ‘He is without breath, without mind, pure’(Mu. Up, II, 1, 2); ‘That person is not attached to anything’ (B ri. Up. IV, 3, 15) 1. All which passages establish the fact that so-called release differs from all the fruits of action, and is an eternally and essentially disembodied state. Among eternal things, some indeed may be ‘eternal, al¬ though changing’ (pari/zaminitya), viz. those, the idea of whose identity is not destroyed, although they may undergo changes; such, for instance, are earth and the other ele¬ ments in the opinion of those who maintain the eternity of the world, or the three guzzas in the opinion of the Sankhyas. But this (moksha) is eternal in the true sense, i. e. eternal without undergoing any changes (ku^astha- nitya), omnipresent as ether, free from all modifications, absolutely self-sufficient, not composed of parts, of self- luminous nature. That bodiless entity in fact, to which merit and demerit with their consequences and threefold time do not apply, is called release; a definition agreeing with scriptural passages, such as the following: ‘ Different from merit and demerit, different from effect and cause, different from past and future’ (Ka. Up. I, 2, 14). It 2 (i. e. moksha) is, therefore, the same as Brahman in the enquiry into which we are at present engaged. If Brahman were represented as supplementary to certain actions, and re- 1 The first passage shows that the Self is not joined to the gross body; the second that it is not joined to the subtle body; the third that is independent of either.
2 Ananda Giri omits ‘ 2X2J1! His comment is: przthagg-igraisa- vishayatva^ £a dharmadyasprzsh/atvazzz brahma/zo yuktam ityaha I tad iti 1 ata^ jabdapa/^e dharmadyasparre karmaphalavailakshazzyazzz hetfikrz'tam.—The above translation follows Govindananda's first explanation. Tat kaivalyam brahmaiva karmaphalavilakshazzatvad ity artha^.
29 lease were assumed to be the effect of those actions, it would be non-eternal, and would have to be considered merely as something holding a pre-eminent position among the described non-eternal fruits of actions with their various degrees. But that release is something eternal is acknow¬ ledged by whoever admits it at all, and the teaching con¬ cerning Brahman can therefore not be merely supplemen¬ tary to actions.
There are, moreover, a number of scriptural passages which declare release to follow immediately on the cognition of Brahman, and which thus preclude the possibility of an effect intervening between the two; for instance, ‘ He who knows Brahman becomes Brahman 5 (Mu. Up. Ill, 2,9); ‘All his works perish when He has been beheld, who is the higher and the lower 5 (Mu. Up. II, 2, 8); ‘ He who knows the bliss of Brahman fears nothing 5 (Taitt. Up. II, 9); ‘ O Ganaka, you have indeed reached fearlessness 5 (B ri. Up. IV, 2,4); ‘ That Brahman knew its Self only, saying, I am Brahman. From it all this sprang 5 (B ri. Up. I, 4, 10); ‘What sorrow, what trouble can there be to him who beholds that unity? 5 ( Is. Up. 7.) We must likewise quote the passage, B ri. Up. I, 4, 10, (‘ Seeing this the Rishi Vamadeva understood: I was Manu, I was the sun, 5 ) in order to exclude the idea of any action taking place between one’s seeing Brahman and becoming one with the universal Self; for that passage is analogous to the following one, ‘standing he sings, 5 from which we understand that no action due to the same agent inter¬ venes between the standing and the singing. Other scrip¬ tural passages show that the removal of the obstacles which lie in the way of release is the only fruit of the knowledge of Brahman; so, for instance, ‘ You indeed are our father, you who carry us from our ignorance to the other shore 5 (Pr. Up. VI, 8); ‘ I have heard from men like you that he who knows the Self overcomes grief. I am in grief. Do, Sir, help me over this grief of mine 5 (. Kh. Up. VII, 1,3); ‘To him after his faults had been rubbed out, the vener¬ able Sanatkumara showed the other side of darkness 5 [Kh, Up. VII, 26, 2). The same is the purport of the Sutra, sup¬ ported by arguments, of (Gautama) AHrya, ‘ Final release 30 VEDANTA-SIJTRAS.
results from the successive removal of wrong knowledge, faults, activity, birth, pain, the removal of each later mem¬ ber of the series depending on the removal of the preceding member’ (Nyay. Su. I, i, 2); and wrong knowledge itself is removed by the knowledge of one’s Self being one with the Self of Brahman.
Nor is this knowledge of the Self being one with Brahman a mere (fanciful) combination \ as is made use of, for instance, in the following passage, ‘ For the mind is endless, and the VLvedevas are endless, and he thereby gains the endless world ’ (B ri. Up. Ill, 1, g ) 1 2; nor is it an (in reality unfounded) ascription (superimposition) 3, as in the passages, ‘Let him meditate on mind as Brahman,’ and ‘ Aditya is Brahman, this is the doctrine’ (KA. Up. Ill, 18, 1; 19, 1), where the contemplation as Brahman is superimposed on the mind, Aditya and so on; nor, again, is it (a figurative conception of identity) founded on the connection (of the things viewed as identical) with some special activity, as in the passage, ‘Air is indeed the absorber; breath is indeed the absorber 4 ’ ( Kh. Up. IV, 3, 1; 3); nor is it a mere (ceremonial) purifi¬ cation of (the Self constituting a subordinate member) of an action (viz. the action of seeing, &c., Brahman), in the same way as, for instance, the act of looking at the sacri- 1 Sampat. Sampan namalpe vastuny alambane samanyena kena&n mahato vastuna^ sampadanam. Ananda Giri.
2 In which passage the mind, which may be called endless on account of the infinite number of modifications it undergoes, is identified with the Vhvedevas, which thereby constitute the chief object of the meditation; the fruit of the meditation being immor¬ tality. The identity of the Self with Brahman, on the other hand, is real, not only meditatively imagined, on account of the attribute of intelligence being common to both.
8 Adhyasa^ jastrato^tasmi^s taddhi^. Sampadi sampadyama- nasya pradhanyenanudhyanam, adhyase tu alambanasyeti vhesha^. Ananda Giri.
4 Air and breath each absorb certain things, and are, therefore, designated by the same term ‘ absorber/ Seyaff* sa^vargadrfsh/ir vayau pra«e ^a daj&ragata/tf ^agad darrayati yatha ^ivatmani b rim- hawakriyaya brahmadr/sh/ir amrztatvaya phalaya kalpataiti. Bhamati.
31 ficial butter 1. For if the knowledge of the identity of the Self and Brahman were understood in the way of combina¬ tion and the like, violence would be done thereby to the connection of the words whose object, in certain passages, it clearly is to intimate the fact of Brahman and the Self being really identical; so, for instance, in the following passages, * That art thou 5 ( Kh. Up. VI, 8, 7); ‘I am Brahman 3 (B ri. Up.
I, 4,10); ‘ This Self is Brahman 5 (B ri. Up. II, 5, 19). And other texts which declare that the fruit of the cognition of Brahman is the cessation of Ignorance would be contradicted thereby; so, for instance, £ The fetter of the heart is broken, all doubts are solved’(Mu. Up. II,2,8). Nor, finally, would it be possible, in that case, satisfactorily to explain the passages which speak of the individual Self becoming Brahman: such as -He who knows Brahman becomes Brahman 5 (Mu. Up. Ill, 2, 9). Hence the knowledge of the unity of Brahman and the Self cannot be of the nature of figurative combination and the like. The knowledge of Brahman does, therefore, not depend on the active energy of man, but is analogous to the knowledge of those things which are the objects of perception, inference, and so on, and thus depends on the object of knowledge only. Of such a Brahman or its knowledge it is impossible to establish, by reasoning, any connection with actions.
Nor, again, can we connect Brahman with acts by repre¬ senting it as the object of the action of knowing. For that it is not such is expressly declared in two passages, viz. e It is different from the known and again above (i. e. different from) the unknown 5 (Ken. Up. I, 3); and ‘How should he know him by whom he knows all this? 3 (B ri. Up.
II, 4,13.) In the same way Brahman is expressly declared not to be the object of the act of devout meditation, viz. in the second half of the verse, Ken. Up. I, 5 > whose first half 1 The butter used in the upa^uya^a is ceremonially purified by the wife of the sacrificer looking at it; so, it might be said, the Self of him who meditates on Brahman (and who as kartn*—agent— stands in a subordinate anga-relation to the karman of meditation) is merely purified by the cognition of its being one with Brahman.
32 VEDANTA-S^TRAS.
declares it not to be an object (of speech, mind, and so on), c That which is not proclaimed by speech, by which speech is proclaimed, that only know to be Brahman, not that on which people devoutly meditate as this/ If it should be objected that if Brahman is not an object (of speech, mind, &c.) the ^astra can impossibly be its source, we refute this objection by the remark that the aim of the ^astra is to discard all distinctions fictitiously created by Nescience. The ^astra’s purport is not to represent Brahman definitely as this or that object, its purpose is rather to show that Brahman as the eternal subject (pratyagatman, the inward Self) is never an object, and thereby to remove the dis¬ tinction of objects known, knowers, acts of knowledge, &c., which is fictitiously created by Nescience. Accordingly the ^•astra says, ‘ By whom it is not thought by him it is thought, by whom it is thought he does not know it; un¬ known by those who know it, it is known by those who do not know it’ (Ken. Up. II, 3); and ‘Thou couldst not see the seer of sight, thou couldst not hear the hearer of hearing, nor perceive the perceiver of perception, nor know the knower of knowledge’ (Bn. Up. Ill, 4, 2). As thereby (i. e. by the knowledge derived from the ^astra) the imagination of the transitoriness of Release which is due to Nescience is discarded, and Release is shown to be of the nature of the eternally free Self, it cannot be charged with the im¬ perfection of non-eternality. Those, on the other hand, who consider Release to be something to be effected properly maintain that it depends on the action of mind, speech, or body. So, likewise, those who consider it to be a mere modification. Non-eternality of Release is the certain consequence of these two opinions; for we observe in common life that things which are modifications, such as sour milk and the like, and things which are effects, such as jars, &c., are non-eternal. Nor, again, can it be said that there is a dependance on action in consequence of (Brahman or Release) being something which is to be obtained 1; for as Brahman constitutes a person’s Self it is 1 An hypothesis which might be proposed for the purpose of 33 not something to be attained by that person. And even if Brahman were altogether different from a person’s Self still it would not be something to be obtained; for as it is omnipresent it is part of its nature that it is ever present to every one, just as the (all-pervading) ether is. Nor, again, can it be maintained that Release is something to be cere¬ monially purified, and as such depends on an activity. For ceremonial purification (sa^skara) results either from the accretion of some excellence or from the removal of some blemish. The former alternative does not apply to Release as it is of the nature of Brahman, to which no excellence can be added; nor, again, does the latter alter¬ native apply, since Release is of the nature of Brahman, which is eternally pure.—But, it might be said, Release might be a quality of the Self which is merely hidden and becomes manifest on the Self being purified by some action; just as the quality of clearness becomes manifest in a mirror when the mirror is cleaned by means of the action of rubbing.—This objection is invalid, we reply, because the Self cannot be the abode of any action. For an action cannot exist without modifying that in which it abides. But if the Self were modified by an action its non-eternality would result therefrom, and texts such as the following, ‘ unchangeable he is called,’ would thus be stultified; an altogether unacceptable result. Hence it is impossible to assume that any action should abide in the Self. On the other hand, the Self cannot be purified by actions abiding in something else as it stands in no relation to that extraneous something. Nor will it avail to point out (as a quasi-analogous case) that the embodied Self (dehin, the individual soul) is purified by certain ritual actions which abide in the body, such as bathing, rinsing one’s mouth, wearing the sacrificial thread, and the like. For what is purified by those actions is that Self merely which is joined to the body, i.e. the Self in so far as it is under the power of Nescience. For it is a matter of perobviating the imputation to moksha of non-eternality which results from the two preceding hypotheses.
ception that bathing and similar actions stand in the relation of inherence to the body, and it is therefore only proper to conclude that by such actions only that some¬ thing is purified which is joined to the body. If a person thinks 4 I am free from disease, 5 he predicates health of that entity only which is connected with and mistakenly identifies itself with the harmonious condition of matter (i. e. the body) resulting from appropriate medical treatment applied to the body (i.e. the 4 I ’ constituting the subject of predication is only the individual embodied Self). Analo¬ gously that I which predicates of itself, that it is purified by bathing and the like, is only the individual soul joined to the body. For it is only this latter principle of egoity (aha^kartrz), the object of the notion of the ego and the agent in all cognition, which accomplishes all actions and enjoys their results. Thus the mantras also declare, 4 One of them eats the sweet fruit, the other looks on without eating 5 (Mu. Up. Ill, i, i); and 4 When he is in union with the body, the senses, and the mind, then wise people call him the Enjoyer 5 (Ka. Up. Ill, i, 4). Of Brahman, on the other hand, the two following passages declare that it is incapable of receiving any accretion and eternally pure, 4 He is the one God, hidden in all beings, all-pervading, the Self within all beings, watching over all works, dwelling in all beings, the witness, the perceiver, the only one; free from qualities 5 (Sv. Up. VI, 11); and 4 He pervaded all, bright, incorporeal, scatheless, without muscles, pure, un¬ touched by evil 5 ( ts. Up. 8). But Release is nothing but being Brahman. Therefore Release is not something to be purified. And as nobody is able to show any other way in which Release could be connected with action, it is im¬ possible that it should stand in any, even the slightest, relation to any action, excepting knowledge.
But, it will be said here, knowledge itself is an activity of the mind. By no means, we reply; since the two are of different nature. An action is that which is enjoined as being independent of the nature of existing things and de¬ pendent on the energy of some person’s mind; compare, for instance, the following passages, 4 To whichever divinity the 35 offering is made on that one let him meditate when about to say vasha^’ (Ait. Brahm. Ill, 8,1); and ‘ Let him meditate in his mind on the sandhya.’ Meditation and reflection are indeed mental, but as they depend on the (meditating, &c.) person they may either be performed or not be per¬ formed or modified. Knowledge, on the other hand, is the result of the different means of (right) knowledge, and those have for their objects existing things; knowledge can there¬ fore not be either made or not made or modified, but depends entirely on existing things, and not either on Vedic statements or on the mind of man. Although mental it thus widely differs from meditation and the like.
The meditation, for instance, on man and woman as fire, which is founded on Kh. Up. V, 7, 1; 8, 1, ‘ The fire is man, O Gautama; the fire is woman, O Gautama,’ is on account of its being the result of a Vedic statement, merely an action and dependent on man; that conception of fire, on the other hand, which refers to the well-known (real) fire, is neither dependent on Vedic statements nor on man, but only on a real thing which is an object of perception; it is therefore knowledge and not an action. The same remark applies to all things which are the objects of the different means of right knowledge. This being thus that knowledge also which has the existent Brahman for its object is not de¬ pendent on Vedic injunction. Hence, although imperative and similar forms referring to the knowledge of Brahman are found in the Vedic texts, yet they are ineffective because they refer to something which cannot be enjoined, just as the edge of a razor becomes blunt when it is applied to a stone. For they have for their object something which can neither be endeavoured after nor avoided.—But what then, it will be asked, is the purport of those sentences which, at any rate, have the appearance of injunctions; such as,‘The Self is to be seen,to be heard about?’—They have the purport, we reply, of diverting (men) from the objects of natural activity. For when a man acts intent on external things, and only anxious to attain the objects of his desire and to eschew the objects of his aversion, and does not thereby reach the highest aim of man although desirous of attaining it; such 36 vedAnta-s£jtras.
texts as the one quoted divert him from the objects of natural activity and turn the stream of his thoughts on the inward (the highest) Self. That for him who is engaged in the enquiry into the Self, the true nature of the Self is nothing either to be endeavoured after or to be avoided, we learn from texts such as the following: ‘This every¬ thing, all is that Self’ (B ri. Up. II, 4, 6 ); ‘ But when the Self only is all this, how should he see another, how should he know another, how should he know the knower? ’ (Bn. Up. IV, 5, 15); ‘ This Self is Brahman ’ (Bn. Up. II, 5 > T 9 )* That the knowledge of Brahman refers to something which is not a thing to be done, and therefore is not concerned either with the pursuit or the avoidance of any object, is the very thing we admit; for just that constitutes our glory, that as soon as we comprehend Brahman, all our duties come to an end and all our work is over. Thus Sruti says, ‘ If a man understands the Self, saying, “ I am he,” what could he wish or desire that he should pine after the body?’ (Bn. Up. IV, 4, 13.) And similarly Smnti declares, ‘Having understood this the understanding man has done with all work, O Bharata ’ (Bha. Gita XV, 20). Therefore Brahman is not represented as the object of injunctions.