Vedanta-Sutras Part I · 4 of 103

Introduction (Part 4)

Primary unevolved matter then passes over into its other condition; it becomes gross and thus acquires all those sensible attributes, visibility, tangibility, 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 (vikâsa). The Lord, together with matter in its gross state and the ‘expanded’ souls, is Brahman in the condition of an effect (kâryâvasthâ). Cause and effect are thus at the bottom the same; for the effect is nothing but the cause which has undergone a certain change (parinâma). Hence the cause being known, the effect is known likewise.

Owing to the effects of their former actions the individual souls are implicated in the samsâra, the endless cycle of birth, action, and death, final escape from which is to be obtained only through the study of the gñânakânda of the Veda. Compliance with the injunctions of the karmakânda docs not lead outside the samsâra; but he who, assisted by the grace of the Lord, cognizes—and meditates on-him in the way prescribed by the Upanishads 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 everlasting blissful existence from which there is no return into the sphere of transmigration. The characteristics 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 prakriti and the purushas of the Sânkhyas, but there exists only one all-embracing being. While, however, the advaita taught by Sankara is a rigorous, absolute one, Râmânuga’s doctrine has to be characterised as visishta advaita, i.e. qualified non-duality, non-duality with a difference. According to Sankara, whatever is, is Brahman, and Brahman itself is absolutely homogeneous, so that all difference and plurality must be illusory.

According to Râmânuga also, whatever is, is Brahman; but Brahman is not of a homogeneous 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 Mâyâ, 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 Îsvara, is himself something unreal.

Râmânuga’s Brahman, 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 nirgunam and an aparam sagunam brahma, between Brahman and Îsvara.—Sankara’s individual soul is Brahman in so far as limited by the unreal upâdhis due to Maya. The individual soul of Râmânuga, on the other hand, is really individual; it has indeed sprung from Brahman and is never outside Brahman, but nevertheless it enjoys a separate personal existence and will remain a personality for ever.—The release from samsâra means, according to Sankara, the absolute merging of the individual soul in Brahman, due to the dismissal of the erroneous notion that the soul is distinct from Brahman; according to Râmânuga 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 Râmânuga 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 Vedânta-sûtras according to Sankara in which at the same time all the more important points concerning which Râmânuga 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 interpretation which have been applied to the Sûtras. 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 adhikaranas), each of which comprises one or more Sûtras, I shall follow the subdivision into adhikaranas adopted in the Vyâsâdhika-ranamâlâ, the text of which is printed in the second volume of the Bibliotheca Indica edition of the Sûtras.

Footnotes xiv:1 The Sûtras in which the gñânakânda of the Veda is systematised go by various names, being called either Vedânta-sutras, or Uttara Mîmâmsâ-sutras, or Brahma-sûtras, or Sârîraka Mîmâmsâ-sutras.

xxii:1 The name of this writer is sometimes given as Dramida, sometimes as Dravida. In the opinion of Pandit Râma Misra Sâstrin of the Benares College—himself a Râmânuga and thoroughly conversant with the books and traditions of his sect—the form ‘Dramida’ is the correct one.

xxii:2 Viz. by Pandit Râma Misra Sâstrin. As the Pandit intends himself to publish all the traditional information he possesses concerning the history of the Bhâgavatas and Râmânugas, I limit myself in the text to stating the most relevant results of my study of the Srî-bhâshya and the Vedârthasangraha.

xxiii:1 Owing to the importance of the Sankara-bhâshya 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 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 Bâdarâyana, 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 bhâshya, 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.’

xxxi:1 The only ‘sectarian’ feature of the Srî-bhâshya is, that identifies Brahman with Vishnu or Nârâyana; but this in no way affects the interpretations put on the Sûtras and Upanishads. Nârâyana is in fact nothing but another name of Brahman.

FIRST ADHYÂYA. PÂDA I. The first five adhikaranas lay clown the fundamental positions with regard to Brahman. Adhik. I (1) 1 treats of what the study of the Vedânta presupposes. Adhik. II (2) defines Brahman as that whence the world originates, and so on. Adhik. III (3) declares that Brahman is the source of the Veda. Adhik. IV (4) proves Brahman to be the uniform topic of all Vedânta-texts. Adhik. V (5-11) is engaged in proving by various arguments that the Brahman, which the Vedanta-texts represent as the cause of the world, is an intelligent principle, and cannot be identified with the non-intelligent pradhâna from which the world springs according to the Sânkhyas.

With the next adhikarana there begins a series of discussions of essentially similar character, extending up to the end of the first adhyâya. The question is throughout whether certain terms met with in the Upanishads denote Brahman or some other being, in most cases the gîva, the individual soul. Sankara remarks at the outset that, as the preceding ten Sûtras had settled the all-important point that all the Vedânta-texts refer to Brahman, the question now arises why the enquiry should be continued any further, and thereupon proceeds to explain that the acknowledged distinction of a higher Brahman devoid of all qualities and a lower Brahman characterised by qualities necessitates an investigation whether certain Vedic texts of primâ facie doubtful import set forth the lower Brahman 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 adhyâya, appears neither from the wording of the Sûtras nor even from Sankara’s own treatment of the Vedic texts referred to in the Sûtras. In I, 1, 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 Khândogya 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 Mâyâ. So that according to Sankara himself the alternative lies between the saguna Brahman and some particular individual soul, not between the saguna Brahman and the nirguna Brahman.

Adhik. VI (12-19) raises the question whether the ânandamaya, mentioned in Taittirîya Upanishad II, 5, is merely a transmigrating individual soul or the highest Self. Sankara begins by explaining the Sûtras on the latter supposition—and the text of the Sûtras is certainly in favour of that interpretation—gives, however, finally the preference to a different and exceedingly forced explanation according to which the Sûtras teach that the ânandamaya is not Brahman, since the Upanishad expressly says that Brahman is the tail or support of the ânandamaya 1.—Râmânuga’s interpretation of Adhikarana 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 ânandamaya 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, Râmânuga separates the adhikarana from the subsequent part of the pâda and connects it with what had preceded. In Adhik. V it had been shown that Brahman cannot be identified with the pradhâna; Adhik. VI shows that it is different from the individual soul, and the proof of the fundamental position of the system is thereby completed 1.—Adhik. VII (20, 31) demonstrates that the golden person seen within the sun and the person seen within the eye, mentioned in Kh. Up. I, 6, are not some individual soul of high eminence, but the supreme Brahman.—Adhik. VIII (22) teaches that by the ether from which, according to Kh. Up. I, 9, all beings originate, not the elemental ether has to be understood but the highest Brahman.—Adhik. IX (23). The prâna also mentioned in Kh. Up. I, ii, 5 denotes the highest Brahman 2—Adhik. X (24-27) teaches that the light spoken of in Kh. Up. III, 13, 7 is not the ordinary physical light but the highest Brahman 3.—Adhik. XI (28-31) decides that the prâna mentioned in Kau. Up. III, 2 is Brahman.

PÂDA II. Adhik. I (1-8) shows that the being which consists of mind, whose body is breath, &c., mentioned in Kh. Up. III, 14, is not the individual soul, but Brahman. The Sûtras of this adhikarana emphatically dwell on the difference of the individual soul and the highest Self, whence Sankara is obliged to add an explanation—in his comment on Sûtra 6—to the effect that that difference is to be understood as not real, but as due to the false limiting adjuncts of the highest Self.—The comment of Râmânuga throughout closely follows the words of the Sûtras; on Sûtra 6 it simply remarks that the difference of the highest Self from the individual soul rests thereon that the former as free from all evil is not subject to the effects of works in the same way as the soul is 1.—Adhik. II (9, 10) decides that he to whom the Brahmans and Kshattriyas are but food (Katha. Up. I, 2, 25) is the highest Self.—Adhik. III (11, 12) shows that the two entered into the cave (Katha Up. I, 3, 1) are Brahman and the individual soul 2.—Adhik. IV (13-17) shows that the person within the eye mentioned in Kh. Up. IV, 15, 1 is Brahman.—Adhik. V (18-20) shows that the ruler within (antaryâmin) described in Bri. Up. III, 7, 3 is Brahman. Sûtra 2,0 clearly enounces the difference of the individual soul and the Lord; hence Sankara is obliged to remark that that difference is not real.—Adhik. VI (21-23) proves that that which cannot be seen, &c, mentioned in Mundaka Up. I, 1, 3 is Brahman.—Adhik. VII (24-32) shows that the âtman vaisvânara of Kh. Up. V, 11, 6 is Brahman.