take the pronoun ‘ this 5 (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, more¬ over, not true that the world is not the previous topic of discussion; we are rather entitled to conclude from the cir¬ cumstance 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 inter¬ preted 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. 5 The special mention made of the persons having been created has for its purpose to show that those persons whom B&laki 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 ex¬ pression as, ‘ The wandering mendicants are to be fed, and then the Brahmazzas V And that the maker of the world is the highest Lord is affirmed in all Vedanta-texts.
17. If it be said that this is not so, on account of the inferential marks of the individual soul and the chief vital air; we reply that that has already been explained.
1 By the Brahmazzas being meant all those Brahmazzas who are not at the same time wandering mendicants.
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 complementarypassage, 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, L 3 1 * There it was shown that from an interpretation similar to the one here proposed by the purvapakshin 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 Brah¬ man. 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. 5 —But if this is so, the sense of the passage under discussion is already settled by the discussion of the passage about Pratarda^a (I, t, 31); why, then, the present Sutra?—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, e Or he whose work is this, 5 refers to Brahman. Hence there arises again, in con¬ nexion 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 pra^a occurs, moreover, in the sense of Brahman, so in the passage, ‘The mind settles down on pra^a 5 ( 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.
18. But (Taimini thinks that (the reference to the individual soul) has another purport, on account of 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 £aimini, 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 A^dta^atru has taught Balaki, by waking the sleeping man, that the soul is different from the vital air, he asks the following question,‘ Balclki, 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 pra^a aloneand, ‘ From that Self all pranas proceed, each towards its place, from the pranas the gods, from the gods the worlds/—Now it is the general Vedanta 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 pra«a, 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 tran¬ quillity, 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 Va^asaneyLrakha, which likewise contains the colloquy of Balaki and A^ata^atru, clearly refers to the individual soul by means of the term, ‘ the person consisting of cog¬ nition ’ (vi^anamaya), and distinguishes from it the highest Self (‘ Where was then the person consisting of cognition? and from whence did he thus come back?’B/^'. 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 4 ether ’ may be used to denote the highest Self, as, for instance, in [34] T the passage about the small ether within the lotus of the heart ( Kh. Up. VIII, 1, 1). Further on the B ri, Up. says, ‘All the Selfs came forth from that Self; 5 by which state¬ ment 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.
19. (The Self to be seen, to be heard, &c. is the highest Self) on account of the connected meaning of the sentences. We read in the Brzhadarazzyaka, in the Maitreyi-brahma/za 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 Maitreyi! When the Self has been seen, heard, perceived, and known, then all this is known ’ (B ri, Up. IV, 5, 6).—Here the doubt arises whether that which is repre¬ sented 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 phrvapakshin 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 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 inter¬ preted 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 Maitreyi has heard from Ya^avalkya that there is no hope of immor¬ tality 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 Ya^zavalkya expounds to her the knowledge of the Self. Now Scripture as well as Smrzti 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 purvapakshin proposes) is inad¬ missible, on account of the explanation given of that state¬ ment in a subsequent passage, viz. ‘ Whosoever looks for the Brahman class elsewhere than in the Self, is aban¬ doned by the Brahman class.’ Here it is said that who- 2 76 VED AN TA-S^TR AS. ever 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.) Ya^/zavalkya 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 purvapakshin 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. 20. (The circumstance of the soul being repre¬ sented as the object of sight) indicates the fulfil¬ ment of the promissory statement; so Asmarathya thinks.
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, 4 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 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 A^marathya *.
21. (The initial statement identifies the individual soul and the highest Self) because the soul when it will depart (from the body) is such (i. e. one with the highest Self); thus Au^ulomi thinks. 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 Au<Ailomi.—Thus Scrip¬ ture 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 1 The comment of the Bhamati on the Sfttra 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 some¬ how non-different.—The technical name of the doctrine here represented by Amarathya is bhedabhedav&da.
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. Ill, 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 \ 22. (The initial statement is made) because (the highest Self) exists in the condition (of the individual soul); so Karakrztsna thinks.
Because the highest Self exists also in the condition of the individual soul, therefore, the teacher KArakrztsna 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 Brahma/zapassage, ‘ 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 5 (Taitt. Ar. Ill, 12, 7) 1 2.
1 Bhamati: 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 Pa^aratrikas: * 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 Au^ulomi is satyabhedavada.
2 Compare the note to the same mantra as quoted above under I, 1, 11.
2 79 And where Scripture relates the creation of fire and the other elements, it does not at the same time relate a sepa¬ rate 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 Ka.rakr/tsna the non-modified highest Lord himself is the individual soul, not anything else. Ajmarathya, 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 de¬ clares a certain mutual dependence—that there does exist a certain relation of cause and effect between the highest Self and the individual soul k The opinion of Au^ulomi again clearly implies that the difference and non-difference of the two depend on difference of condition 1 2. Of these three opinions we conclude that the one held by KcUakrztsna accords with Scripture, because it agrees with what all the Vedanta-texts (so, for instance, the passage, ‘ That art thou ’) aim at inculcating. Only on the opinion of Ka^akr/tsna 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 exist¬ ence 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 purvapakshin’s argu¬ ments, viz. that the BrzhadaraTzyaka passage represents as 1 And not the relation of absolute identity.
2 I. e. upon the state of emancipation and its absence.
28 o 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 A^marathya thinks. 5 The promise is made in the two passages, £ When the Self is known, all this is known/ and £ All this is that Self. 5 That the Self is every¬ thing, 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 Ajrnarathya 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 Au^/ulomi thinks. 5 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 Au<Ailomi 5 s opinion.— £ Because it exists in the con¬ dition of the soul; thus Klrakrztsna opines. 5 Because the highest Self itself is that which appears as the indivi¬ dual soul, the statement as to the non-difference of the two is well-founded. This is the view of the teacher KcLfakrztsna.
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 1 Upapaditazra keti, sarvasyatmamatratvam iti ^esha^. Upapadanaprakaraw su^ayati eketi. Sa yathardrendhanagner ityadinaikaprasavatvam, ^atha sarvasam apam ityadina ^aikapralayatvaw sarvasyoktam. An. Gi.
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, c 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 matras. 5 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 m&tr&s, 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 c When he has departed there is no more knowledge. 5 The third argument also of the purvapakshin, viz. that the word ‘ knower 5 —which occurs in the concluding pas¬ sage, ‘ How should he know the knower? 5 —denotes an agent, and therefore refers to the individual soul as the object of sight, is to be refuted according to the view of Kai-akrztsna.— Moreover, the text after having enumerated—in the passage, ‘ For where there is duality as it were, there one sees the other, 5 &c.—all the kinds of specific cognition which belong to the sphere of Nescience declares—in the subsequent passage, c But when the Self only is all this, how should he see another? 5 —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, Yd^iavalkya goes on, c How, O beloved, should he know himself, the knower? 5 As thus the latter passage evidently aims at proving the absence of specific cognition, we have to con¬ clude that the word ‘ knower 5 is here used to denote that being which is knowledge, i. e. the Self.—That the view of KsLrakrztsna is scriptural, we have already shown above. And as it is so, all the adherents of the Vedanta must admit that the difference of the soul and the highest Self is not 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' (B ri. Up. II, 4, 6); ‘There is no other seer but he 5 (B ri. Up. Ill, 7, 23); ‘ There is nothing that sees but it ’ (B ri. Up. Ill, 8, 11).—It is likewise confirmed by Smrz’ti; compare, for instance, ‘V&sudeva is all this’ (Bha. Gi. VII, 19); ‘Know me, O Bharata, to be the soul in all bodies 3 (Bha. Gi. XIII, 2); * He who sees the highest Lord abiding alike within all creatures 5 (Bha. Gi. 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 5 (B ri. Up. I, 4, 10); ‘ From death to death he goes who sees here any diversity 5 (B ri. 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 ’ (B ri. 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 Vedanta * (Mu. Up. Ill, 2, 6). Compare also the passage, ‘ What trouble, what sorrow can there be to him who has once beheld that unity? 5 (L. Up. 7.)—And Smrzti also represents the mind of him who contemplates the Self as steady (Bha. Gi. II, 54).
As therefore the individual soul and the highest Self differ in name only, it being a settled matter that perfect know¬ ledge 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 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, i), 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 Vedanta-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.
23. (Brahman is) the material cause also, on account of (this view) not being in conflict with the promissory statements and the illustrative in¬ stances. 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 fW the cause of absolute beatitude. And Brahman has been | defined as that from which there proceed the origination, f sustentation, and retractation of this world. Now as this definition comprises alike the relation of substantial caus¬ ality in which clay and gold, for instance, stand to golden ornaments and earthen pots, and the relation of operative 1 So according to Go. An. and An. Gi., although their inter¬ pretations seem not to account sufficiently for the ekam of the text.
—Katfz&d evaik&m iti ^ivasthanad anyam ity artha/L Go. An.— Givabhavena pratibimbadharatiriktam ity arthaA An. Gi.
2 While release, as often remarked, is eternal, it being in fact not different from the eternally unchanging Brahman.
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 purvapakshin 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, 354:* He reflected, he created prazza. 5 For observation shows that the action of operative causes only, such as potters and the like, is pre¬ ceded 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 5 furnishes another argu¬ ment. 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 j does not resemble the world in nature, we know from many scriptural passages, such as 4 It is without parts, without actions, tranquil, without fault, without taint ’ (.SVe. Up.