bhcishya. The author most frequently quoted is Dramk/a 1, who composed the Drami^/a-bhashya; he is sometimes referred to as the bhashyakara. Another writer repeatedly quoted as the vakyakara is, I am told 2, to be identified with the 7 anka mentioned above. I refrain from inserting in this place the information concerning the relative age of these writers which may be derived from the oral tradition of the Ram^nu^a sect. From another source, however, we receive an intimation that Dramk/aMrya or Dravk/aMrya preceded Sankara in point of time. In his /ikd on San¬ kara’s bhashya to the iTMndogya Upanishad III, 10, 4, Anandagiri remarks that the attempt made by his author to reconcile the cosmological views of the Upanishad with the teaching of Smrzti on the same point is a reproduction of the analogous attempt made by the Dravi^aMrya.
It thus appears that that special interpretation of the Vedclnta-stitras with which the Sri-bhashya makes us acquainted is not due to innovating views on the part of Rcimanu^a, but had authoritative representatives already at a period anterior to that of Sankara. This latter point, moreover, receives additional confirmation from the relation in which the so-called Ramanuja sect stands to earlier sects. What the exact position of Ramanuja was, and of what nature were the reforms that rendered him so pro¬ minent as to give his name to a new sect, is not exactly known at present; at the same time it is generally acknow¬ ledged that the Rimanu^as are closely connected with the so-called Bhagavatas or Pa^aratras, who are known to have existed already at a very early time. This latter point is proved by evidence of various kinds; for our present purpose it suffices to point to the fact that, according to the interpre¬ tation of the most authoritative commentators, the last 1 The name of this writer is sometimes given as Dramida, sometimes as Dravi^/a. In the opinion of Vaudit Rama Mura Aastrin of the Benares College—himself a Ramanuja and thoroughly conversant with the books and traditions of his sect—the form ‘ Dramk/a ’ is the correct one.
2 Viz. by Pandit Rama Mura Gastrin. As the ~Pandit intends himself to publish all the traditional information he possesses concerning the history of the Bhagavatas and Ramanujas, I limit myself in the text to stating the most relevant results of my study of the.Sri-bhashya and the Vedarthasangraha.
INTRODUCTION.
XXlll Sutras of the second p&da of the second adhyaya (Ved&nta- sutras) refer to a distinctive tenet of the Bhagavatas—which tenet forms part of the Rdmanu^a system also—viz. that the highest being manifests itself in a fourfold form (vyuha) as Vasudeva, Sankarsha^a, Pradyumna, Aniruddha, those four forms being identical with the highest Self, the indi¬ vidual soul, the internal organ (manas), and the principle of egoity (ahankara). Whether those Sutras embody an approval of the tenet referred to, as Ramanuja maintains, or are meant to impugn it, as Sankara thinks; so much is certain that in the opinion of the best commentators the Bhagavatas, the direct forerunners of the Ramanujas, are mentioned in the Sutras themselves, and hence must not only have existed, but even reached a considerable degree of importance at the time when the Sutras were composed. And considering the general agreement of the systems of the earlier Bhagavatas and the later Ramanujas, we have a full right to suppose that the two sects were at one also in their mode of interpreting the Vedanta-sutras.
The preceding considerations suffice, I am inclined to think, to show that it will by no means be wasted labour to enquire how R&manu^a interprets the Sutras, and wherein he differs from Sankara. This in fact seems clearly to be the first step we have to take, if we wish to make an attempt at least of advancing beyond the interpretations of scho¬ liasts to the meaning of the Sutras themselves. A full and exhaustive comparison of the views of the two com¬ mentators would indeed far exceed the limits of the space which can here be devoted to that task, and will, moreover, be made with greater ease and advantage when the complete Sanskrit text of the Srt-bhashya has been printed, and thus made available for general reference. But meanwhile it is possible, and—as said before—even urged upon a translator of the Sfttras to compare the interpretations, given by the two bhdshyakaras, of those Sutras, which, more than others, touch on the essential points of the Vedanta system 1. This 1 Owing to the importance of the 6ankara-bhashya as the fundamental work of the most influential Hindu school of philosophy, the number of topics which might be discussed in the introduction to its translation is considerable. But XXIV VEDANTA-S<JTRAS.
will best be done In connexion with a succinct but full review of the topics discussed in the adhikara^as of the Ved&nta-sutras, according to Sankara; a review which— apart from the side-glances at Ramanuja’s comments— will be useful as a guide through the Sutras and the Sankara-bhashya. Before, however, entering on that task, I think it advisable to insert short sketches of the philosophical systems of Sankara as well as of Ramanuja, which may be referred to when, later on, discrepancies between the two commentators will be noted. In these sketches I shall confine myself to the leading features, and not enter into any details. Of Sankara’s system we possess as it is more than one trustworthy exposition; it may suffice to refer to Deussen’s System of the Ved&nta, in which the details of the entire system, as far as they can be learned from the Sfitra-bhashya, are represented fully and faithfully, and to Gough’s Philosophy of the Upanishads which, principally in its second chapter, gives a lucid sketch of the Ankara Vedanta, founded on the Sutra- bhashya, the Upanishad bMshyas, and some later writers belonging to Sankara’s school. With regard to Ram&nuja’s philosophy our chief source was, hitherto, the Ram&nuja chapter in the Sarvadar^a^asa^graha; the short sketch about to be given is founded altogether on the Sri- bhashya itself.
What in Sankara’s opinion the Upanishads teach, is shortly as follows.—Whatever is, is in reality one; there truly exists only one universal being called Brahman or Paramatman, the highest Self. This being is of an abso¬ lutely homogeneous nature; it is pure ‘ Being,’ or, which comes to the same, pure intelligence or thought (^aitanya, the limitation of the space at our disposal necessitates a selection, and it can hardly be doubted that, among the possible tasks of a translator, that of ascertaining how far the teaching of.Sankara agrees with that of Badaraya^a, and, further, how far either of them represents the true doctrine of the Upanishads, is the one first to be taken in hand.—Some other topics, such as a detailed account of.Sankara’s teaching according to the bhashya, an enquiry as to the books and authors quoted by.Sankara, &c., have, moreover, been treated not long ago in a very thorough fashion by Dr. Deussen in his ‘ System des Vedanta.’
INTRODUCTION.
XXV guana). Intelligence or thought is not to be predicated of Brahman as its attribute, but constitutes its substance; Brahman is not a thinking being, but thought itself. It is absolutely destitute of qualities; whatever qualities or attributes are conceivable, can only be denied of it.—But, if nothing exists but one absolutely simple being, whence the appearance of the world by which we see ourselves surrounded, and in which we ourselves exist as individual beings?—Brahman, the answer runs, is associated with a certain power called Mayi or avidya to which the appearance of this entire world is due. This power cannot be called ‘ being ’ (sat), for ‘ being * is only Brahman; nor can it be called ‘ non-being ’ (asat) in the strict sense, for it at any rate produces the appearance of this world. It is in fact a prin¬ ciple of illusion; the undefinable cause owing to which there seems to exist a material world comprehending distinct individual existences. Being associated with this principle of illusion, Brahman is enabled to project the appearance of the world, in the same w T ay as a magician is enabled by his incomprehensible magical power to produce illusory ap¬ pearances of animate and inanimate beings. May£ thus constitutes the up^ddna, the material cause of the world; or —if we wish to call attention to the circumstance that M&yci belongs to Brahman as a ^akti—we may say that the material cause of the world is Brahman in so far as it is associated with Maya* In this latter quality Brahman is more properly called tsvara, the Lord.
Maya, under the guidance of the Lord, modifies itself by a progressive evolution into all the individual existences (bheda), distinguished by special names and forms, of which the world consists; from it there spring in due succession the different material elements and the whole bodily apparatus belonging to sentient beings. In all those apparently individual forms of existence the one indivisible Brahman is present, but, owing to the particular adjuncts into which M&ya has specialised itself, it appears to be broken up—it is broken up, as it were—into a multi¬ plicity of intellectual or sentient principles, the so-called ^ivas (individual or personal souls). What is real in each XXVI vedAnta-s£>tras.
giva is only the universal Brahman itself; the whole aggregate of individualising bodily organs and mental functions, which in our ordinary experience separate and distinguish one £iva from another, is the offspring of Maya and as such unreal.
The phenomenal world or world of ordinary experience (vyavahara) thus consists of a number of individual souls engaged in specific cognitions, volitions, and so on, and of the external material objects with which those cognitions and volitions are concerned. Neither the specific cognitions nor their objects are real in the true sense of the word, for both are altogether due to Maya. But at the same time we have to reject the idealistic doctrine of certain Bauddha schools according to which nothing whatever truly exists, but certain trains of cognitional acts or ideas to which no external objects correspond; for external things, although not real in the strict sense of the word, enjoy at any rate as much reality as the specific cognitional acts whose objects they are.
The non-enlightened soul is unable to look through and beyond Maya, which, like a veil, hides from it its true nature. Instead of recognising itself to be Brahman, it blindly identifies itself with its adjuncts (upadhi), the fictitious offspring of Maya, and thus looks for its true Self in the body, the sense organs, and the internal organ (manas), i. e. the organ of specific cognition. The soul, which in reality is pure intelligence, non-active, infinite, thus becomes limited in extent, as it were, limited in knowledge and power, an agent and enjoyer. Through its actions it burdens itself with merit and demerit, the consequences of which it has to bear or enjoy in series of future embodied existences, the Lord—as a retributor and dispenser—allotting to each soul that form of embodiment to which it is entitled by its previous actions. At the end of each of the great world periods called kalpas the Lord retracts the whole world, i.e. the whole material world is dissolved and merged into non-distinct Maya, while the individual souls, free for the time from actual connexion with upadhis, lie in deep slumber as it were. But as the INTRODUCTION.
XXV11 consequences of their former deeds are not yet exhausted, they have again to enter on embodied existence as soon as the Lord sends forth a new material world, and the old round of birth, action, death begins anew to last to all eternity as it has lasted from all eternity.
The means of escaping from this endless sa/^sara, the way out of which can never be found by the non-enlightened soul, are furnished by the Veda. The karmaka/^a indeed, whose purport it is to enjoin certain actions, cannot lead to final release; for even the most meritorious works necessarily lead to new forms of embodied existence. And in the gn^mkknddi of the Veda also two different parts have to be distinguished, viz., firstly, those chapters and passages which treat of Brahman in so far as related to the world, and hence characterised by various attributes, i. e. of l^vara or the lower Brahman; and, secondly, those texts which set forth the nature of the highest Brahman tran¬ scending all qualities, and the fundamental identity of the individual soul with that highest Brahman. Devout medi¬ tation on Brahman as suggested by passages of the former kind does not directly lead to final emancipation; the pious worshipper passes on his death into the world of the lower Brahman only, where he continues to exist as a distinct individual soul—although in the enjoyment of great power and knowledge—until at last he reaches the highest knowledge, and, through it, final release.—That student of the Veda, on the other hand, whose soul has been enlightened by the texts embodying the higher know¬ ledge of Brahman, whom passages such as the great saying, ‘ That art thou/ have taught that there is no difference between his true Self and the highest Self, obtains at the moment of death immediate final release, i.e. he withdraws altogether from the influence of Mayd, and asserts himself in his true nature, which is nothing else but the absolute highest Brahman.
Thus Sankara.—According to Ramanuja, on the other hand, the teaching of the Upanishads has to be summarised as follows.—There exists only one all-embracing being called Brahman or the highest Self or the Lord. This being is XXV111 VEDANTA-S{jTRA$.
not destitute of attributes, but rather endowed with all imaginable auspicious qualities. It is not 4 intelligence/—as Sankara maintains,—but intelligence is its chief attribute. The Lord is all-pervading, all-powerful, all-knowing, all- merciful; his nature is fundamentally antagonistic to all evil. He contains within himself whatever exists. While, accord¬ ing to.Sankara, the only reality is to be found in the non¬ qualified homogeneous highest Brahman which can only be defined as pure ‘Being’ or pure thought, all plurality being a mere illusion; Brahman—according to Ramanuja’s view—* comprises within itself distinct elements of plurality which all of them lay claim to absolute reality of one and the same kind. Whatever is presented to us by ordinary experience, viz. matter in all its various modifications and the individual souls of different classes and degrees, are essential real constituents of Brahman’s nature. Matter and souls (a£it and k\t) constitute, according to Rdmanqja’s terminology, the body of the Lord; they stand to him in the same relation of entire dependence and subserviency in which the matter forming an animal or vegetable body stands to its soul or animating principle. The Lord pervades and rules all things which exist—material or immaterial—as their antaryamin; the fundamental text for this special Ramanuja tenet—which in the writings of the sect is quoted again and again—is the so-called antaryamin brahma«a (B rL Up. Ill, 7) which says, that within all elements, all sense organs, and, lastly, within all individual souls, there abides an inward ruler whose body those elements, sense-organs, and individual souls constitute.—Matter and souls as forming the body of the Lord are also called modes of him (prakara). They are to be looked upon as his effects, but they have enjoyed the kind of individual exist¬ ence which is theirs from all eternity, and will never be entirely resolved into Brahman. They, however, exist in two different, periodically alternating, conditions. At some times they exist in a subtle state in which they do not possess those qualities by which they are ordinarily known, and there is then no distinction of individual name and form. Matter in that state is unevolved (avyakta); the INTRODUCTION.
XXIX individual souls are not joined to material bodies, and their intelligence is in a state of contraction, non-manifestation (sankoyfca). This is the pralaya state which recurs at the end of each kalpa, and Brahman is then said to be in its causal condition (karazzavastha). To that state all those scriptural passages refer which speak of Brahman or the Self as being in the beginning one only, without a second. Brahman then is indeed not absolutely one, for it contains within itself matter and souls in a germinal condition; but as in that condition they are so subtle as not to allow of individual distinctions being made, they are not counted as something second in addition to Brahman.—When the pralaya state comes to an end, creation takes place owing to an act of volition on the Lord’s part. Primary unevolved matter then passes over into its other condition; it becomes gross and thus acquires all those sensible attributes, visibility, tangi¬ bility, and so on, which are known from ordinary experience. At the same time the souls enter into connexion with material bodies corresponding to the degree of merit or demerit acquired by them in previous forms of existence; their intelligence at the same time undergoes a certain expansion (vika^a). The Lord, together with matter in its gross state and the c expanded 5 souls, is Brahman in the condition of an effect (karyavastha). Cause and effect are thus at the bottom the same; for the effect is nothing but the cause which has undergone a certain change (pari- zzama). Hence the cause being known, the effect is known likewise.
Owing to the effects of their former actions the indi¬ vidual souls are implicated in the sa/zzsara, the endless cycle of birth, action, and death, final escape from which is to be obtained only through the study of the gh ana- kazzdfo of the Veda. Compliance with the injunctions of the karmakazz^a does not lead outside the sazzzsara; but he who, assisted by the grace of the Lord, cognizes—and meditates on—him in the way prescribed by the Upani- shads reaches at his death final emancipation, i.e. he passes through the different stages of the path of the gods up to the world of Brahman and there enjoys an XXX VEDANTA-SUTRAS.
everlasting blissful existence from which there is no re¬ turn into the sphere of transmigration. The character¬ istics of the released soul are similar to those of Brahman; it participates in all the latter’s glorious qualities and powers, excepting only Brahman’s power to emit, rule, and retract the entire world.
The chief points in which the two systems sketched above agree on the one hand and diverge on the other may be shortly stated as follows.—Both systems teach advaita, i.e. non-duality or monism. There exist not several fundamentally distinct principles, such as the pra- krzti and the purushas of the Sankhyas, but there exists only one all-embracing being. While, however, the advaita taught by Sankara is a rigorous, absolute one, Ramanuja’s doctrine has to be characterised as vLdsh/a advaita, i.e. qualified non-duality, non-duality with a difference. Ac¬ cording to Sankara, whatever is, is Brahman, and Brahman itself is absolutely homogeneous, so that all difference and plurality must be illusory. According to Ramanuja also, whatever is, is Brahman; but Brahman is not of a homo¬ geneous nature, but contains within itself elements of plurality owing to which it truly manifests itself in a diversified world. The world with its variety of material forms of existence and individual souls is not unreal Maya, but a real part of Brahman's nature, the body investing the universal Self. The Brahman of.Sankara is in itself impersonal, a homogeneous mass of objectless thought, transcending all attributes; a personal God it becomes only through its association with the unreal principle of Maya, so that—strictly speaking—.Sankara’s personal God, his t^vara, is himself something unreal. Ramanuja’s Brah¬ man, on the other hand, is essentially a personal God, the all-powerful and all-wise ruler of a real world permeated and animated by his spirit. There is thus no room for the distinction between a param nirguzzam and an aparaz^ saguzzam brahma, between Brahman and Irvara.—.San¬ kara’s individual soul is Brahman in so far as limited by the unreal upadhis due to Maya. The individual soul of Ramanuja, on the other hand, is really individual; it has INTRODUCTION.
XXXI indeed sprung from Brahman and is never outside Brah¬ man, but nevertheless it enjoys a separate personal exist¬ ence and will remain a personality for ever.—The release from sawsara means, according to Sankara, the absolute merging of the individual soul in Brahman, due to the dis¬ missal of the erroneous notion that the soul is distinct from Brahman; according to R&manu^a it only means the soul’s passing from the troubles of earthly life into a kind of heaven or paradise where it will remain for ever in undisturbed personal bliss.—As Ramanuja does not distinguish a higher and lower Brahman, the distinction of a higher and lower knowledge is likewise not valid for him; the teaching of the Upanishads is not twofold but essentially one, and leads the enlightened devotee to one result only 1.
I now proceed to give a conspectus of the contents of the Vedanta-sutras according to.Sankara in which at the same time all the more important points concerning which Ramanuja disagrees will be noted. We shall here have to enter into details which to many may appear tedious. But it is only on a broad substratum of accurately stated details that we can hope to establish any definite conclusions regarding the comparative value of the different modes of interpreta¬ tion which have been applied to the Sutras. The line of investigation is an entirely new one, and for the present nothing can be taken for granted or known.—In stating the different heads of discussion (the so-called adhikara/zas), each of which comprises one or more Sutras, I shall follow the subdivision into adhikara/zas adopted in the Vyasadhika- ra/zamala, the text of which is printed in the second volume of the Bibliotheca Indica edition of the Sutras.
1 The only •' sectarian ’ feature of the 6ri-bhashya is, that it identifies Brahman with Vish#u or Narayarca; but this in no way affects the interpretations put on the Sfitras and Upanishads. Narayawa is in fact nothing but another name of Brahman.
xxxu VEDANTA-StjTRAS.
FIRST ADHYAYA.
PAda I.
The first five adhikara/zas lay down the fundamental positions with regard to Brahman. Adhik, I (i) 1 treats of what the study of the Vedanta presupposes. Adhik. II (2) defines Brahman as that whence the world originates, and so on. Adhik. Ill (3) declares that Brahman is the source of the Veda. Adhik. IV (4) proves Brahman to be the uniform topic of all Vedanta-texts. Adhik. V (5-11) is engaged in proving by various arguments that the Brah¬ man, which the Vedanta-texts represent as the cause of the world, is an intelligent principle, and cannot be iden¬ tified with the non-intelligent pradMna from which the world springs according to the Sankhyas.
With the next adhikara/za there begins a series of dis¬ cussions of essentially similar character, extending up to the end of the first adhyaya. The question is throughout whether certain terms met with in the Upanishads denote Brahman or some other being, in most cases the ^iva, the individual soul. ^Sankara remarks at the outset that, as the preceding ten Sutras had settled the all-important point that all the Vedanta-texts refer to Brahman, the question now arises why the enquiry should be continued any fur¬ ther, and thereupon proceeds to explain that the acknow¬ ledged distinction of a higher Brahman devoid of all qualities and a lower Brahman characterised by qualities necessitates an investigation whether certain Vedic texts of prima facie doubtful import set forth the lower Brah¬ man as the object of devout meditation, or the higher Brahman as the object of true knowledge. But that such an investigation is actually carried on in the remaining portion of the first adhyaya, appears neither from the wording of the Sfttras nor even from 6arikara’s own treatment of the Vedic 1 The Roman numerals indicate the number of the adhikarawa; the figures in parentheses state the Sfitras comprised in each adhikara^a.
INTRODUCTION.
xxxiii texts referred to in the Sfitras. In I, i, 20, for instance, the question is raised whether the golden man within the sphere of the sun, with golden hair and beard and lotus-coloured eyes—of whom the ^Oandogya Upanishad speaks in I, 6, 6 —is an individual soul abiding within the sun or the highest Lord..Sankara’s answer is that the passage refers to the Lord, who, for the gratification of his worshippers, manifests himself in a bodily shape made of Maya. So that according to Sankara himself the alternative lies between the saguzza Brahman and some particular individual soul, not between the saguzza Brahman and the nirguzza Brahman.
Adhik. VI (12-19) raises the question whether the ananda- maya, mentioned in Taittirtya Upanishad II, 5, is merely a transmigrating individual soul or the highest Self. San¬ kara begins by explaining the Sutras on the latter suppo¬ sition—and the text of the Sutras is certainly in favour of that interpretation—gives, however, finally the preference to a different and exceedingly forced explanation according to which the Sutras teach that the anandamaya is not Brah¬ man, since the Upanishad expressly says that Brahman is the tail or support of the anandamaya 1.—Ramanuja’s in¬ terpretation of Adhikarazza VI, although not agreeing in all particulars with the former explanation of Sankara, yet is at one with it in the chief point, viz. that the ananda¬ maya is Brahman. It further deserves notice that, while Sankara looks on Adhik. VI as the first of a series of interpretatory discussions, all of which treat the question whether certain Vedic passages refer to Brahman or not, Ramanuja separates the adhikarazza from the subsequent part of the pada and connects it with what had preceded. In Adhik. V it had been shown that Brahman cannot be 1 Deussen’s supposition (pp. 30, 150) that the passage conveying the second, interpretation is an interpolation is liable to two objections. In the first place, the passage is accepted and explained by all commentators; in the second place, Sankara in the passage immediately preceding Sutra 12 quotes the adhikarawa ‘ &nandamayo x bhyasat ’ as giving rise to a discussion whether the param or the aparam brahman is meant. Now this latter point is not touched upon at all in that part of the bhashya which sets forth the former explanation, but only in the subsequent passage, which refutes the former and advocates the latter interpretation.