Vedanta-Sutras Part I · 69 of 103

Adhyaya I: Pada IV: Sutra 13

To this reasoning we make the following reply.—It is impossible to base the assertion that the pradhâna, &c. have Scripture in their favour on the reference to their number which you pretend to find in the text, ‘on account of the diversity of the Sânkhya categories.’ The Sânkhya categories, have each their individual difference, and there are no attributes belonging in common to each pentad on account of which the number twenty-five could be divided into five times five. For a number of individually separate things can, in general, not be combined into smaller groups of two or three, &c. unless there be a special reason for such combination.—Here the Sânkhya will perhaps rejoin that the expression five (times) five is used only to denote the number twenty-five which has five pentads for its constituent parts; just as the poem says, ‘five years and seven Indra did not rain,’ meaning only that there was no rain for twelve years.—But this explanation also is not tenable. In the first place, it is liable to the objection that it has recourse to indirect indication. 1 In the second place, the second ‘five’ constitutes a compound with the word ‘people,’ the Brâhmana-accent showing that the two form one word only. 2 To the same conclusion we are led by another passage also (Taitt. Samh. I, 6, 2, 2, pañkânâm tvâ pañkaganânâm, &c.) where the two terms constitute one word, have one accent and one case-termination.

The word thus being a compound there is neither a repetition of the word ‘five,’ involving two pentads, nor does the one five qualify the other, as the mere secondary member of a compound cannot be qualified by another word.—But as the people are already denoted to be five by the compound ‘five-people,’ the effect of the other ‘five’ qualifying the compound will be that we understand twenty-five people to be meant; just as the expression ‘five five-bundles’ (pañka pañkapûlyah) conveys the idea of twenty-five bundles.—The instance is not an analogous one, we reply. The word ‘pañkapûli’ denotes a unity (i.e.

one bundle made up of five bundles) and hence when the question arises, ‘How many such bundles are there?’ it can be qualified by the word ‘five,’ indicating that there are five such bundles. The word pañkaganâh, on the other hand, conveys at once the idea of distinction (i.e. of five distinct things), so that there is no room at all for a further desire to know how many people there are, and hence no room for a further qualification.

And if the word ‘five’ be taken as a qualifying word it can only qualify the numeral five (in five-people); the objection against which assumption has already been stated.—For all these reasons the expression the five five-people cannot denote the twenty-five categories of the Sânkhyas.—This is further not possible ‘on account of the excess.’ For on the Sânkhya interpretation there would be an excess over the number twenty-five, owing to the circumstance of the ether and the Self being mentioned separately. The Self is spoken of as the abode in which the five five-people rest, the clause ‘Him I believe to be the Self’ being connected with the ‘in whom’ of the antecedent clause.

Now the Self is the intelligent soul of the Sânkhyas which is already included in the twenty-five categories, and which therefore, on their interpretation of the passage, would here be mentioned once as constituting the abode and once as what rests in the abode! If, on the other hand, the soul were supposed not to be compiled in the twenty-five categories, the Sânkhya would thereby abandon his own doctrine of the categories being twenty-five. The same remarks apply to the separate mention made of the ether.—How, finally, can the mere circumstance of a certain number being referred to in the sacred text justify the assumption that what is meant are the twenty-five Sânkhya categories of which Scripture speaks in no other place? especially if we consider that the word gana has not the settled meaning of category, and that the number may be satisfactorily accounted for on another interpretation of the passage.

How, then, the Sânkhya will ask, do you interpret the phrase ‘the five five-people?’—On the ground, we reply, of the rule Pânini II, 1, 50, according to which certain compounds formed with numerals are mere names. The word pañkaganâh thus is not meant to convey the idea of the number five, but merely to denote certain classes of beings. Hence the question may present itself, How many such classes are there? and to this question an answer is given by the added numeral ‘five.’ There are certain classes of beings called five-people, and these classes are five. Analogously we may speak of the seven seven-rishis, where again the compound denotes a class of beings merely, not their number.—Who then are those five-people?—To this question the next Sûtra replies.

Footnotes 258:1 Indication (lakshanâ, which consists in this case in five times five being used instead of twenty-five) is considered as an objectionable mode of expression, and therefore to be assumed in interpretation only where a term can in no way be shown to have a direct meaning.

258:2 That pañkaganâh is only one word appears from its having only one accent, viz. the udâtta on the last syllable, which udâtta becomes anudâtta according to the rules laid down in the Bhâshika Sûtra for the accentuation of the Satapatha-brâhmana.

12.(The pañkaganâh are) the breath and so on, (as is seen) from the complementary passage.

The mantra in which the pañkaganâh are mentioned is followed by another one in which breath and four other things are mentioned for the purpose of describing the nature of Brahman. ‘They who know the breath of breath, the eye of the eye, the ear of the ear, the food of food, the mind of mind 1.’ Hence we conclude, on the ground of proximity, that the five-people are the beings mentioned in this latter mantra.—But how, the Sânkhya asks, can the word ‘people’ be applied to the breath, the eye, the ear, and so on?—How, we ask in return, can it be applied to your categories? In both cases the common meaning of the word ‘people’ has to be disregarded; but in favour of our explanation is the fact that the breath, the eye, and so on, are mentioned in a complementary passage. The breath, the eye, &c. may be denoted by the word ‘people’ because they are connected with people. Moreover, we find the word ‘person,’ which means as much as ‘people,’ applied to the prânas in the passage, ‘These are the five persons of Brahman’ (Kh. Up. III, 13, 6); and another passage runs, ‘Breath is father, breath is mother,’ &c. (Kh. Up. VII, 15, 1).

And, owing to the force of composition, there is no objection to the compound being taken in its settled conventional meaning 1.—But how can the conventional meaning be had recourse to, if there is no previous use of the word in that meaning?—That may be done, we reply, just as in the case of udbhid and similar words 2. We often infer that a word of unknown meaning refers to some known thing because it is used in connexion with the latter.

So, for instance, in the case of the following words: ‘He is to sacrifice with the udbhid; he cuts the yûpa; he makes the vedi.’ Analogously we conclude that the term pañkaganâh, which, from the grammatical rule quoted, is known to be a name, and which therefore demands a thing of which it is the name, denotes the breath, the eye, and so on, which are connected with it through their being mentioned in a complementary passage.—Some commentators explain the word pañkaganâh to mean the Gods, the Fathers, the Gandharvas, the Asuras, and the Rakshas. Others, again, think that the four castes together with the Nishâdas are meant. Again, some scriptural passage (Rig-veda Samh. VIII, 53, 7) speaks of the tribe of ‘the five-people,’ meaning thereby the created beings in general; and this latter explanation also might be applied to the passage under discussion. The teacher (the Sûtrakâra), on the other hand, aiming at showing that the passage does not refer to the twenty-five categories of the Sânkhyas, declares that on the ground of the complementary passage breath, &c. have to be understood.

Well, let it then be granted that the five-people mentioned in the Mâdhyandina-text are breath, &c. since that text mentions food also (and so makes up the number five). But how shall we interpret the Kânva-text which does not mention food (and thus altogether speaks of four things only)?—To this question the next Sûtra replies.

Footnotes 260:1 So in the Mâdhyandina recension of the Upanishad; the Kânva recension has not the clause ‘the food of food.’

261:1 This in answer to the Sânkhya who objects to gana when applied to the prâna, &c. being interpreted with the help of lakshanâ; while if referred to the pradhâna, &c. it may be explained to have a direct meaning, on the ground of yaugika interpretation (the pradhâna being gana because it produces, the mahat &c. being gana because they are produced). The Vedântin points out that the compound pañkaganâh has its own rûdhi-meaning, just as asvakarna, literally horse-ear, which conventionally denotes a certain plant.

261:2 We infer that udbhid is the name of a sacrifice because it is mentioned in connexion with the act of sacrificing; we infer that the yûpa is a wooden post because it is said to be cut, and so on.

13.In the case of (the text of) some (the Kânvas) where food is not mentioned, (the number five is made full) by the light (mentioned in the preceding mantra).

The Kânva-text, although not mentioning food, makes up the full number five, by the light mentioned in the mantra preceding that in which the five-people are spoken of. That mantra describes the nature of Brahman by saying, ‘Him the gods worship as the light of lights.’—If it be asked how it is accounted for that the light mentioned in both texts equally is in one text to be employed for the explanation of the five-people, and not in the other text; we reply that the reason lies in the difference of the requirements. As the Mâdhyandinas meet in one and the same mantra with breath and four other entities enabling them to interpret the term, ‘the five-people,’ they are in no need of the light mentioned in another mantra. The Kânvas, on the other hand, cannot do without the light. The case is analogous to that of the Shodasin-cup, which, according to different passages, is either to be offered or not to be offered at the atirâtra-sacrifice.

We have proved herewith that Scripture offers no basis for the doctrine of the pradhâna. That this doctrine cannot be proved either by Smriti or by ratiocination will be shown later on.

14.(Although there is a conflict of the Vedânta-passages with regard to the things created, such as) ether and so on; (there is no such conflict with regard to the Lord) on account of his being represented (in one passage) as described (in other passages), viz. as the cause (of the world).

In the preceding part of the work the right definition of Brahman has been established; it has been shown that all the Vedânta-texts have Brahman for their common topic; and it has been proved that there is no scriptural authority for the doctrine of the pradhâna.—But now a new objection presents itself.