and as such remains infinitely below the bliss of true mukti. And this a priori impression—which, although no doubt significant, could hardly be appealed to as decisive—is confirmed by a detailed consideration of the two sets of Sutras which.Sankara connects with the knowledge of the higher Brahman. How these Sutras are interpreted by Sankara and Ramanuja has been stated above in the con¬ spectus of contents; the points which render the interpre¬ tation given by Ramanuja more probable are as follows. With regard to IV, 2, 12-14, we have to note, in the first place, the circumstance—relevant although not decisive in itself—that Sutra 12 does not contain any indication of a new topic being introduced. In the second place, it can hardly be doubted that the text of Sutra 13, ‘ spashfo hy ekesham/ is more appropriately understood, with Rama¬ nuja, as furnishing a reason for the opinion advanced in the preceding Sfitra, than—with.Sankara—as embodying the refutation of a previous statement (in which latter case we should expect not ‘ hi ’ but ‘ tu ’). And, in the third place, the ‘eke/ i.e. ‘some/ referred to in Sutra 13 would, on.Sankara’s interpretation, denote the very same persons to whom the preceding Sutra had referred, viz. the followers of the Ka^va-^akha (the two Vedic passages referred to in 12 and 13 being B ri. Up. IV, 4, 5, and III, 2, 11, according to the Ka^va recension); while it is the standing practice of the Sutras to introduce, by means of the designation ‘eke,’ members of Vedic Vakhas, teachers, &c. other than those alluded to in the preceding Sutras. With this practice Ramanuja’s interpretation, on the other hand, fully agrees; for, according to him, the ‘ eke 5 are the Ma- dhyandinas, whose reading in B ri. Up. IV, 4, 5, viz. ‘ tasmat,’ clearly indicates that the ‘ tasya 5 in the corresponding passage of the Ka^vas denotes the j-arira, i.e. the j*iva. I think it is not saying too much that.Sankaras explana¬ tion, according to which the 4 eke ’ would denote the very same Ka^vas to whom the preceding Sutra had referred*— so that the Ka^vas would be distinguished from themselves as it were—is altogether impossible.
The result of this closer consideration of the first set of xc VEDANTA-SlJTRAS.
Sutras, alleged by vSankara to concern the owner of the higher knowledge of Brahman, entitles us to view with some distrust vSankara’s assertion that another set also—IV, 4, 1-7—has to be detached from the general topic of the fourth adhyaya, and to be understood as depicting the condition of those who have obtained final absolute release. And the Sutras themselves do not tend to weaken this preliminary want of confidence. In the first place their wording also gives no indication whatever of their having to be separated from what precedes as well as what follows. And, in the second place, the last Sutra of the set (7) obliges vSankara to ascribe to his truly released souls qualities which clearly cannot belong to them; so that he finally is obliged to make the extraordinary state¬ ment that those qualities belong to them ‘ vyavaharape- kshaya,’ while yet the purport of the whole adhikarazza is said to be the description of the truly released soul for which no vyavahara exists! Very truly vSankara’s com¬ mentator here remarks, ‘atra kekln muhyanti akhazz^a- /Ifinmatra^zzanan muktasya^anabhavat kuta a^zzanika- dharmayoga^,’ and the way in which thereupon he himself attempts to get over the difficulty certainly does not improve matters.
In connexion with the two passages discussed, we meet in the fourth adhyaya with another passage, which indeed has no direct bearing on the distinction of apara and para vidya, but may yet be shortly referred to in this place as another and altogether undoubted instance of vSankara’s interpretations not always agreeing with the text of the Sutras. The Sutras 7-16 of the third pada state the opinions of three different teachers on the question to which Brahman the soul of the vidvan repairs on death, or— according to Ramanuja—the worshippers of which Brah¬ man repair to (the highest) Brahman. Ramanuja treats the views of Badari and (Saimini as two purvapakshas, and the opinion of Badarayazza—which is stated last—as the siddhanta. vSankara, on the other hand, detaching the Sutras in which Badarayazza’s view is set forth from the preceding part of the adhikarazza (a proceeding which, although not INTRODUCTION.
XC1 INTRODUCTION.
XC1 plausible, yet cannot be said to be altogether illegiti¬ mate), maintains that Badari’s view, which is expounded first, represents the siddhanta, while Gaimini’s view, set forth subsequently, is to be considered a mere purva- paksha. This, of course, is altogether inadmissible, it being the invariable practice of the Vedanta-sutras as well as the Purva Mima;/zsa-sutras to conclude the dis¬ cussion of contested points with the statement of that view which is to be accepted as the authoritative one. This is so patent that Sankara feels himself called upon to defend his deviation from the general rule (Commentary on IV, 4, 13), without, however, bringing forward any arguments but such as are valid only if Sankara’s system itself is already accepted.
The previous considerations leave us, I am inclined to think, no choice but to side with Ramanuja as to the general subject-matter of the fourth adhyaya of the Sutras. We need not accept him as our guide in all particular interpretations, but we must acknowledge with him that the Sutras of the fourth adhyaya describe the ultimate fate of one and the same vidvan, and do not afford any basis for the distinction of a higher and lower knowledge of Brahman in Sankara’s sense.
If we have not to discriminate between a lower and a higher knowledge of Brahman, it follows that the dis¬ tinction of a lower and a higher Brahman is likewise not valid. But this is not a point to be decided at once on the negative evidence of the fourth adhyaya, but regarding which the entire body of the Vedanta-sutras has to be consulted. And intimately connected with this investiga¬ tion—in fact, one with it from a certain point of view—is the question whether the Sutras afford any evidence of their author having held the doctrine of Maya, the principle of illusion, by the association with which the highest Brahman, in itself transcending all qualities, appears as the lower Brahman or li*vara. That Ramanuja denies the distinction of the two Brahmans and the doctrine of Maya we have seen above; we shall, however, in the subsequent investigation, pay less attention to his views and inter- XC11 VEDANTA-S^TRAS.
pretations than to the indications furnished by the Sutras themselves.
Placing myself at the point of view of a.Sankara, I am startled at the outset by the second Sutra of the first adhyaya, which undertakes to give a definition of Brahman. ‘Brahman is that whence the origination and so on (i. e. the sustentation and reabsorption) of this world proceed.’ What, we must ask, is this Sutra meant to define?—That Brah¬ man, we are inclined to answer, whose cognition the first Sutra declares to constitute the task of the entire Vedanta; that Brahman whose cognition is the only road to final release; that Brahman in fact which Sankara calls the highest.—But, here we must object to ourselves, the highest Brahman is not properly defined as that from which the world originates. In later Vedantic writings, whose authors were clearly conscious of the distinction of the higher absolute Brahman and the lower Brahman related to Ma yk or the world, we meet with definitions of Brahman of an altogether different type. I need only remind the reader of the current definition of Brahman as sa£-£id-ananda, or, to mention one individual instance, refer to the introductory dokas of the Pa^ada^i dilating on the sa^vid svayam- prabha, the self-luminous principle of thought which in all time, past or future, neither starts into being nor perishes (P. D. I, 7). ‘ That from which the world proceeds ’ can by a Sankara be accepted only as a definition of l^vara, of Brahman which by its association with Maya is enabled to project the false appearance of this world, and it certainly is as improbable that the Sfitras should open with a definition of that inferior principle, from whose cognition there can accrue no permanent benefit, as, according to a remark made above, it is unlikely that they should con¬ clude with a description of the state of those who know the lower Brahman only, and thus are debarred from obtaining true release. As soon, on the other hand, as we discard the idea of a twofold Brahman and conceive Brah^ man as one only, as the all-enfolding being which some¬ times emits the world from its own substance and sometimes again retracts it into itself, ever remaining one in all its INTRODUCTION.
XC1U various manifestations—a conception which need not by any means be modelled in all its details on the views of the Ramanujas—the definition of Brahman given in the second Sutra becomes altogether unobjectionable.
We next enquire whether the impression left on the mind by the manner in which Badaraya^a defines Brah¬ man, viz. that he does not distinguish between an absolute Brahman and a Brahman associated with Maya, is con¬ firmed or weakened by any other parts of his work. The Sfitras being throughout far from direct in their enun¬ ciations, we shall have to look less to particular terms and turns of expression than to general lines of reasoning. What in this connexion seems specially worthy of being taken into account, is the style of argumentation employed by the Sfitrakara against the Sankhya doctrine, which maintains that the world has originated, not from an intelligent being, but from the non-intelligent pradhana. The most important Sutras relative to this point are to be met with in the first pada of the second adhyaya. Those Sfitras are indeed almost unintelligible if taken by them¬ selves, but the unanimity of the commentators as to their meaning enables us to use them as steps in our investiga¬ tion. The sixth Sutra of the pada mentioned replies to the Sankhya objection that the non-intelligent world cannot spring from an intelligent principle, by the remark that ' it is thus seen/ i.e. it is a matter of common observation that non-intelligent things are produced from beings endowed with intelligence; hair and nails, for instance, springing from animals, and certain insects from dung.—Now, an argu¬ mentation of this kind is altogether out of place from the point of view of the true vSankara. According to the latter the non-intelligent world does not spring from Brahman in so far as the latter is intelligence, but in so far as it is associated with Maya. Maya is the upadana of the material world, and Maya itself is of a non-intelligent nature, owing to which it is by so many Vedantic writers identified with the prakr/ti of the Sankhyas. Similarly the illustrative instances, adduced under Sutra 9 for the purpose of showing that effects when being reabsorbed into their causal sub- XC1V VEDANTA-SUTRAS.
stances do not impart to the latter their own qualities, and that hence the material world also, when being refunded into Brahman, does not impart to it its own imperfections, are singularly inappropriate if viewed in connexion with the doctrine of Maya, according to which the material world is no more in Brahman at the time of a pralaya than during the period of its subsistence. According to 5 ankara the world is not merged in Brahman, but the special forms into which the up 4 dana of the world, i.e. Maya, had modified itself are merged in non-distinct Maya, whose relation to Brahman is not changed thereby.—The illus¬ tration, again, given in Sutra 24 of the mode in which Brah¬ man, by means of its inherent power, transforms itself into the world without employing any extraneous instruments of action, ‘kshlravad dhi,’ ‘ as milk (of its own accord turns into curds),’ would be strangely chosen indeed if meant to bring nearer to our understanding the mode in which Brahman projects the illusive appearance of the world; and also the analogous instance given in the Sutra next following, ‘ as Gods and the like (create palaces, chariots, &c. by the mere power of their will) ’—which refers to the real creation of real things—would hardly be in its place if meant to illustrate a theory which considers unreality to be the true character of the world. The mere cumulation of the two essentially heterogeneous illustrative instances (kshiravad dhi; dev&divat), moreover, seems to show that the writer who had recourse to them held no very definite theory as to the particular mode in which the world springs from Brahman, but was merely concerned to render plausible in some way or other that an intelligent being can give rise to what is non-intelligent without having recourse to any extraneous means 1.
That the Maya doctrine was not present to the mind of the Sutrakara, further appears from the latter part of the fourth pada of the first adhyaya, where it is shown that Brahman is not only the operative but also the material cause of the world. If anywhere, there would have been 1.Sankara’s favourite illustrative instance of the magician producing illusive sights is—significantly enough—not known to the Sutras.
INTRODUCTION.
XCV the place to indicate, had such been the authors view, that Brahman is the material cause of the world through Maya only, and that the world is unreal; but the Sutras do not contain a single word to that effect. Sutra 26, on the other hand, exhibits the significant term ‘ parbzamatBrahman produces the world by means of a modification of itself. It is well known that later on, when the terminology of the Vedanta became definitely settled, the term ‘pari/zamavada’ was used to denote that very theory to which the followers of Sankara are most violently opposed, viz. the doctrine according to which the world is not a mere vivarta, i.e. an illusory manifestation of Brahman, but the effect of Brah¬ man undergoing a real change, may that change be con¬ ceived to take place in the way taught by Rimanu^a or in some other manner.—With regard to the last-quoted Sutra, as well as to those touched upon above, the commentators indeed maintain that whatever terms and modes of ex¬ pression are apparently opposed to the vivartavada are in reality reconcilable with it; to Sutra 26, for instance, Govindananda remarks that the term ‘ parizzama * only denotes an effect in general (karyamatra), without implying that the effect is real. But in cases of this nature we are fully entitled to use our own judgment, even if we were not compelled to do so by the fact that other commentators, such as Rdmanu^-a, are satisfied to take ‘ parizzama ’ and similar terms in their generally received sense.
A further section treating of the nature of Brahman is met with in III, 2,11 ff. It is, according to Sankara’s view, of special importance, as it is alleged to set forth that Brah¬ man is in itself destitute of all qualities, and is affected with qualities only through its limiting adjuncts (upadhis), the offspring of Maya. I have above (in the conspectus of contents) given a somewhat detailed abstract of the whole section as interpreted by Sankara on the one hand, and Ramanuja on the other hand, from which it appears that the latter’s opinion as to the purport of the group of Sutras widely diverges from that of Sankara. The wording of the Sutras is so eminently concise and vague that I find it impossible to decide which of the two commentators—if XCV1 VEDANTA-S^TRAS.
indeed either—is to be accepted as a trustworthy guide; regarding the sense of some Sutras Sankara’s explanation seems to deserve preference, in the case of others Rama¬ nuja seems to keep closer to the text. I decidedly prefer, for instance, Ramanuja’s interpretation of Sutra 22, as far as the sense of the entire Sutra is concerned, and more especially with regard to the term 4 prakrztaitavat- tvam,’ whose proper force is brought out by Ramanuja’s explanation only. So much is certain that none of the Sfttras decidedly favours the interpretation proposed by Sankara. Whichever commentator we follow, we greatly miss coherence and strictness of reasoning, and it is thus by no means improbable that the section is one of those—perhaps not few in number—in which both inter¬ preters had less regard to the literal sense of the words and to tradition than to their desire of forcing Badarayazza’s Stitras to bear testimony to the truth of their own philo¬ sophic theories* With special reference to the Maya doctrine one impor¬ tant Sutra has yet to be considered, the only one in which the term ‘m&ya’ itself occurs, viz. Ill, 2, 3. According to Sankara the Sutra signifies that the environments of the dreaming soul are not real but mere Mayi, i. e. unsub¬ stantial illusion, because they do not fully manifest the character of real objects. Ramanuja (as we have seen in the conspectus) gives a different explanation of the term ‘ maya,’ but in judging of Sankara’s views we may for the time accept Sankara’s own interpretation. Now, from the latter it clearly follows that if the objects seen in dreams are to be called Maya, i.e. illusion, because not evincing the characteristics of reality, the objective world surround¬ ing the waking soul must not be called Mayi. But that the world perceived by waking men is Maya, even in a higher sense than the world presented to the dreaming con¬ sciousness, is an undoubted tenet of the Sankara Vedanta; and the Sutra therefore proves either that Badaraya/za did not hold the doctrine of the illusory character of the world, or else that, if after all he did hold that doctrine, he used the term ‘ maya ’ in a sense altogether different from that INTRODUCTION.
XCV11 in which Sankara employs it.—If, on the other hand, we, with Rdmanu^a, understand the word ‘ mayi 5 to denote a wonderful thing, the Sfttra of course has no bearing what¬ ever on the doctrine of Mayd in its later technical sense.
We now turn to the question as to the relation of the individual soul to Brahman. Do the Sfttras indicate any¬ where that their author held.Sankara’s doctrine, according to which the ^iva is in reality identical with Brahman, and separated from it, as it were, only by a false surmise due to avidya, or do they rather favour the view that the souls, although they have sprung from Brahman, and constitute elements of its nature, yet enjoy a kind of individual exist¬ ence apart from it? This question is in fact only another aspect of the Maya question, but yet requires a short separate treatment.
In the conspectus I have given it as my opinion that the Shtras in which the size of the individual soul is discussed can hardly be understood in.Sankara’s sense, and rather seem to favour the opinion, held among others by Rama¬ nuja, that the soul is of minute size. We have further seen that Sfttra 18 of the third pada of the second adhyaya, which describes the soul as ‘ gn^ is more appropriately under¬ stood in the sense assigned to it by Ramanuja; and, again, that the Sfttras which treat of the soul being an agent, can be reconciled with.Sankara’s views only if supplemented in a way which their text does not appear to authorise.— We next have the important Stitra II, 3, 43 in which the soul is distinctly said to be a part (am) of Brahman, and which, as we have already noticed, can be made to fall in with.Sankaras views only if a^a is explained, altogether arbitrarily, by ‘a^a iva,’ while Ramanuja is able to take the Stitra as it stands.—We also have already referred to Stitra 5o, c abh&sa eva £a,’ which.Sankara interprets as setting forth the so-called pratibimbavada according to which the indi¬ vidual Self is merely a reflection of the highest Self. But almost every Sutra—and Sutra 50 forms no exception—being so obscurely expressed, that viewed by itself it admits of various, often totally opposed, interpretations, the only safe method is to keep in view, in the case of each ambiguous [ 34 ] g XCV111 vedanta-sOtras.
aphorism, the general drift and spirit of the whole work, and that, as we have seen hitherto, is by no means favour¬ able to the pratibimba doctrine. How indeed could Sutra 5 °? if setting forth that latter doctrine, be reconciled with Sfltra 43, which says distinctly that the soul is a part of Brahman? For that 43 contains, as Sankara and his commentators aver, a statement of the ava^Medavdda, can itself be ac¬ cepted only if we interpret a^a by amsa iva, and to do so there is really no valid reason whatever. I confess that Ramanuja’s interpretation of the Sutra (which however is accepted by several other commentators also) does not appear to me particularly convincing; and the Sutras unfortunately offer us no other passages on the ground of which we might settle the meaning to be ascribed to the term abhasa, which may mean ‘ reflection,’ but may mean hetvabhasa, i. e. fallacious argument, as well. But as things stand, this one Sfitra cannot, at any rate, be appealed to as proving that the pratibimbav&da which, in its turn, pre¬ supposes the mayavada, is the teaching of the Sutras.
To the conclusion that the Siitrakara did not hold the doctrine of the absolute identity of the highest and the individual soul in the sense of Sankara, we are further led by some other indications to be met with here and there in the Sutras. In the conspectus of contents we have had occasion to direct attention to the important Sutra II, 1,23, which distinctly enunciates that the Lord is adhika, i. e. additional to, or different from, the individual soul, since Scripture declares the two to be different. Analogously I, 2, 20 lays stress on the fact that the sarira is not the antaryamin, because the Madhyandinas, as well as the Ka/zvas, speak of him in their texts as different (bhedena enam adhiyate), and in 22 the sartra and the pradhana are referred to as the two ‘ others ’ (itarau) of whom the text predicates distinctive attributes separating them from the highest Lord. The word * itara ’ (the other one) appears in several other passages (I, 1, 16; I, 3, 16; II, 1, 21) as a kind of technical term denoting the individual soul in con¬ tradistinction from the Lord. The.Sankaras indeed main¬ tain that all those passages refer to an unreal distinction INTRODUCTION.
XC1X due to avidya. But this is just what we should like to see proved, and the proof offered in no case amounts to more than a reference to the system which demands that the Sutras should be thus understood. If we accept the inter¬ pretations of the school of Sankara, it remains altogether un¬ intelligible why the Sutrakara should never hint even at what Sankara is anxious again and again to point out at length, viz. that the greater part of the work contains a kind of exoteric doctrine only, ever tending to mislead the student who does not keep in view what its nature is. If other reasons should make it probable that the Sutrakara was anxious to hide the true doctrine of the Upanishads as a sort of esoteric teaching, we might be more ready to accept Sankara’s mode of interpretation. But no such reasons are forthcoming; nowhere among the avowed followers of the Sankara system is there any tendency to treat the kernel of their philosophy as something to be jealously guarded and hidden. On the contrary, they all, from Gau- dfapada down to the most modern writer, consider it their most important, nay, only task to inculcate again and again in the clearest and most unambiguous language that all appearance of multiplicity is a vain illusion, that the Lord and the individual souls are in reality one, and that all knowledge but this one knowledge is without true value.
There remains one more important passage concern¬ ing the relation of the individual soul to the highest Self, a passage which attracted our attention above, when we were reviewing the evidence for early divergence of opinion among the teachers of the Vedanta. I mean I, 4, 20-33, which three Sutras state the views of A^ma- rathya, AuAdomi, and Ka^akr/tsna as to the reason why, in a certain passage of the Br/hadara^yaka, characteristics of the individual soul are ascribed to the highest Self. The siddhanta view is enounced in Sutra 22, c avasthiter iti Klra- krztsna^,’ i. e. Ka^akr/tsna (accounts for the circumstance mentioned) on the ground of the ‘permanent abiding or abode.’ By this ‘permanent abiding’ Sankara understands the Lord’s abiding as, i. e. existing as—or in the condition of —the individual soul, and thus sees in the Sutra an enunciag 2 c vedanta-s6tras.
tion of his own view that the individual soul is nothing but the highest Self, ‘ avikrzta^ parame^varo j*ivo nanya^.’ Rama¬ nuja, on the other hand, likewise accepting Ka^akr/tsna’s opinion as the siddhanta view, explains 4 avasthiti ’ as the Lord’s permanent abiding within the individual soul, as de¬ scribed in the antaryamin-brahmazza.—We can hardly main¬ tain that the term ‘avasthiti’ cannot have the meaning ascribed to it by Sankara, viz. special state or condition, but so much must be urged in favour of Ramanuja’s interpreta¬ tion that in the five other places where avasthiti (or ana- vasthiti) is met with in the Sutras (I, 2, 17; II, 2, 4; II, 2, 13; II, 3, 24; III, 3, 32) it regularly means permanent abiding or permanent abode within something.
If, now, I am shortly to sum up the results of the pre¬ ceding enquiry as to the teaching of the Sutras, I must give it as my opinion that they do not set forth the distinc¬ tion of a higher and lower knowledge of Brahman; that they do not acknowledge the distinction of Brahman and i yvara in Sankara’s sense; that they do not hold the doctrine of the unreality of the world; and that they do not, with Sankara, proclaim the absolute identity of the individual and the highest Self. I do not wish to advance for the present beyond these negative results. Upon Ramanuja’s mode of interpretation—although I accept it without reserve in some important details—I look on the whole as more useful in providing us with a powerful means of criticising Sankara’s explanations than in guiding us throughout to the right understanding of the text. The author of the Sutras may have held views about the nature of Brahman, the world, and the soul differing from those of Sankara, and yet not agreeing in all points with those of Ramanuja. If, however, the negative conclusions stated above should be well founded, it would follow even from them that the system of Badaraya/za had greater affinities with that of the Bhagavatas and Ramanuja than with the one of which the Sankara-bhashya is the classical exponent.
It appears from the above review of the teaching of the Sutras that only a comparatively very small proportion of them contribute matter enabling us to form a judgment INTRODUCTION. ci INTRODUCTION. ci as to the nature of the philosophical doctrine advocated by Badariya^a. The reason of this is that the greater part of the work is taken up with matters which, according to.Sankara’s terminology, form part of the so-called lower knowledge, and throw no light upon philosophical questions in the stricter sense of the word. This circumstance is not without significance. In later works belonging to.Sankara’s school in which the distinction of a higher and lower vidyd is clearly recognised, the topics constituting the latter are treated with great shortness; and rightly so, for they are unable to accomplish the highest aim of man, i. e. final release. When we therefore, on the other hand, find that the subjects of the so-called lower vidyd are treated very fully in the Vedanta-sutras, when we observe, for instance, the almost tedious length to which the investigation of the unity of vidyas (most of which are so-called sagu;za, i. e. lower vidyas) is carried in the third adhyaya, or the fact of almost the whole fourth adhyaya being devoted to the ultimate fate of the possessor of the lower vidya; we cer¬ tainly feel ourselves confirmed in our conclusion that what Sankara looked upon as comparatively unimportant formed in Bcidaraya^a’s opinion part of that knowledge higher than which there is none, and which therefore is entitled to the fullest and most detailed exposition.
The question as to what kind of system is represented by the Vedanta-sutras may be approached in another way also. While hitherto we have attempted to penetrate to the meaning of the Sutras by means of the different com¬ mentaries, we might try the opposite road, and, in the first place, attempt to ascertain independently of the Sutras what doctrine is set forth in the Upanishads, whose teach¬ ing the Sutras doubtless aim at systematising. If, it might be urged, the Upanishads can be convincingly shown to embody a certain settled doctrine, we must consider it at the least highly probable that that very same doctrine—of whatever special nature it may be—is hidden in the enig¬ matical aphorisms of Badaraya^a 1.
I do not, however, consider this line of argumentation 1 Cp. Gough’s Philosophy of the Upanishads, pp. 240 ff.
Cll VEDANTA-S^TRAS.