The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya Part 5

Adhik. VI (11, 12) explains how the soul of the released can animate several bodies at the same time.--Sutra 12 gives, according to /S/[email protected], the additional explanation that those pa.s.sages which declare the absence of all specific cognition on the part of the released soul do not refer to the partly released soul of the devotee, but either to the soul in the state of deep sleep (svapyaya = sushupti), or to the fully released soul of the sage (sampatti = kaivalya).--Ramanuja explains that the pa.s.sages speaking of absence of consciousness refer either to the state of deep sleep, or to the time of dying (sampatti = mata/n/am according to 'van manasi sampadyate,' &c.).

Adhik. VII (17-21).--The released jivas partic.i.p.ate in all the perfections and powers of the Lord, with the exception of the power of creating and sustaining the world. They do not return to new forms of embodied existence.

After having, in this way, rendered ourselves acquainted with the contents of the Brahma-sutras according to the views of /S/[email protected] as well as Ramanuja, we have now to consider the question which of the two modes of interpretation represents--or at any rate more closely approximates to the true meaning of the Sutras. That few of the Sutras are intelligible if taken by themselves, we have already remarked above; but this does not exclude the possibility of our deciding with a fair degree of certainty which of the two interpretations proposed agrees better with the text, at least in a certain number of cases.

We have to note in the first place that, in spite of very numerous discrepancies,--of which only the more important ones have been singled out in the conspectus of contents,--the two commentators are at one as to the general drift of the Sutras and the arrangement of topics. As a rule, the adhikara/n/as discuss one or several Vedic pa.s.sages bearing upon a certain point of the system, and in the vast majority of cases the two commentators agree as to which are the special texts referred to. And, moreover, in a very large number of cases the agreement extends to the interpretation to be put on those pa.s.sages and on the Sutras.

This far-reaching agreement certainly tends to inspire us with a certain confidence as to the existence of an old tradition concerning the meaning of the Sutras on which the bulk of the interpretations of /S/[email protected] as well as of Ramanuja are based.

But at the same time we have seen that, in a not inconsiderable number of cases, the interpretations of /S/[email protected] and Ramanuja diverge more or less widely, and that the Sutras affected thereby are, most of them, especially important because bearing on fundamental points of the Vedanta system. The question then remains which of the two interpretations is ent.i.tled to preference.

Regarding a small number of Sutras I have already (in the conspectus of contents) given it as my opinion that Ramanuja's explanation appears to be more worthy of consideration. We meet, in the first place, with a number of cases in which the two commentators agree as to the literal meaning of a Sutra, but where /S/[email protected] sees himself reduced to the necessity of supplementing his interpretation by certain additions and reservations of his own for which the text gives no occasion, while Ramanuja is able to take the Sutra as it stands. To exemplify this remark, I again direct attention to all those Sutras which in clear terms represent the individual soul as something different from the highest soul, and concerning which /S/[email protected] is each time obliged to have recourse to the plea of the Sutra referring, not to what is true in the strict sense of the word, but only to what is conventionally looked upon as true. It is, I admit, not altogether impossible that /S/[email protected]'s interpretation should represent the real meaning of the Sutras; that the latter, indeed, to use the terms employed by Dr.

Deussen, should for the nonce set forth an exoteric doctrine adapted to the common notions of mankind, which, however, can be rightly understood by him only to whose mind the esoteric doctrine is all the while present. This is not impossible, I say; but it is a point which requires convincing proofs before it can be allowed.--We have had, in the second place, to note a certain number of adhikara/n/as and Sutras concerning whose interpretation /S/[email protected] and Ramanuja disagree altogether; and we have seen that not unfrequently the explanations given by the latter commentator appear to be preferable because falling in more easily with the words of the text. The most striking instance of this is afforded by the 13th adhikara/n/a of II, 3, which treats of the size of the jiva, and where Ramanuja's explanation seems to be decidedly superior to /S/[email protected]'s, both if we look to the arrangement of the whole adhikara/n/a and to the wording of the single Sutras. The adhikara/n/a is, moreover, a specially important one, because the nature of the view held as to the size of the individual soul goes far to settle the question what kind of Vedanta is embodied in Badaraya/n/a's work.

But it will be requisite not only to dwell on the interpretations of a few detached Sutras, but to make the attempt at least of forming some opinion as to the relation of the Vedanta-sutras as a whole to the chief distinguishing doctrines of /S/[email protected] as well as Ramanuja. Such an attempt may possibly lead to very slender positive results; but in the present state of the enquiry even a merely negative result, viz. the conclusion that the Sutras do not teach particular doctrines found in them by certain commentators, will not be without its value.

The first question we wish to consider in some detail is whether the Sutras in any way favour /S/[email protected]'s doctrine that we have to distinguish a twofold knowledge of Brahman, a higher knowledge which leads to the immediate absorption, on death, of the individual soul in Brahman, and a lower knowledge which raises its owner merely to an exalted form of individual existence. The adhyaya first to be considered in this connexion is the fourth one. According to /S/[email protected] the three latter padas of that adhyaya are chiefly engaged in describing the fate of him who dies in the possession of the lower knowledge, while two sections (IV, 2, 12-14; IV, 4, 1-7) tell us what happens to him who, before his death, had risen to the knowledge of the highest Brahman.

According to Ramanuja, on the other hand, the three padas, referring throughout to one subject only, give an uninterrupted account of the successive steps by which the soul of him who knows the Lord through the Upanishads pa.s.ses, at the time of death, out of the gross body which it had tenanted, ascends to the world of Brahman, and lives there for ever without returning into the sa/m/sara.

On an a priori view of the matter it certainly appears somewhat strange that the concluding section of the Sutras should be almost entirely taken up with describing the fate of him who has after all acquired an altogether inferior knowledge only, and has remained shut out from the true sanctuary of Vedantic knowledge, while the fate of the fully initiated is disposed of in a few occasional Sutras. It is, I think, not too much to say that no unbia.s.sed student of the Sutras would--before having allowed himself to be influenced by /S/[email protected]'s interpretations--imagine for a moment that the solemn words, 'From thence is no return, from thence is no return,' with which the Sutras conclude, are meant to describe, not the lasting condition of him who has reached final release, the highest aim of man, but merely a stage on the way of that soul which is engaged in the slow progress of gradual release, a stage which is indeed greatly superior to any earthly form of existence, but yet itself belongs to the essentially fict.i.tious sa/m/sara, 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 /S/[email protected] connects with the knowledge of the higher Brahman. How these Sutras are interpreted by /S/[email protected] and Ramanuja has been stated above in the conspectus of contents; the points which render the interpretation given by Ramanuja more probable are as follows. With regard to IV, 2, 12-14, we have to note, in the first place, the circ.u.mstance--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, 'spash/t/o hy ekesham,' is more appropriately understood, with Ramanuja, as furnishing a reason for the opinion advanced in the preceding Sutra, than--with /S/[email protected] 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 /S/[email protected]'s interpretation, denote the very same persons to whom the preceding Sutra had referred, viz. the followers of the Ka/n/va-/s/akha (the two Vedic pa.s.sages referred to in 12 and 13 being B/ri/. Up. IV, 4, 5, and III, 2, 11, according to the Ka/n/va recension); while it is the standing practice of the Sutras to introduce, by means of the designation 'eke,'

members of Vedic /s/akhas, 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' are the Madhyandinas, whose reading in B/ri/. Up. IV, 4, 5, viz. 'tasmat,'

clearly indicates that the 'tasya' in the corresponding pa.s.sage of the Ka/n/vas denotes the /s/arira, i.e. the jiva. I think it is not saying too much that /S/[email protected]'s explanation, according to which the 'eke'

would denote the very same Ka/n/vas to whom the preceding Sutra had referred--so that the Ka/n/vas would be distinguished from themselves as it were--is altogether impossible.

The result of this closer consideration of the first set of Sutras, alleged by /S/[email protected] to concern the owner of the higher knowledge of Brahman, ent.i.tles us to view with some distrust /S/[email protected]'s a.s.sertion 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 /S/[email protected] to ascribe to his truly released souls qualities which clearly cannot belong to them; so that he finally is obliged to make the extraordinary statement that those qualities belong to them 'vyavaharapekshaya,' while yet the purport of the whole adhikara/n/a is said to be the description of the truly released soul for which no vyavahara exists! Very truly /S/[email protected]'s commentator here remarks, 'atra ke/k/in muhyanti akha/n/da/k/inmatrajanan muktasyajnanabhavat kuta aj/n/anika-dharmayoga/h/,' and the way in which thereupon he himself attempts to get over the difficulty certainly does not improve matters.

In connexion with the two pa.s.sages discussed, we meet in the fourth adhyaya with another pa.s.sage, 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 /S/[email protected]'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 Brahman repair to (the highest) Brahman. Ramanuja treats the views of Badari and Jaimini as two purvapakshas, and the opinion of Badaraya/n/a--which is stated last--as the siddhanta. /S/[email protected], on the other hand, detaching the Sutras in which Badaraya/n/a's view is set forth from the preceding part of the adhikara/n/a (a proceeding which, although not plausible, yet cannot be said to be altogether illegitimate), maintains that Badari's view, which is expounded first, represents the siddhanta, while Jaimini's view, set forth subsequently, is to be considered a mere purvapaksha. This, of course, is altogether inadmissible, it being the invariable practice of the Vedanta-sutras as well as the Purva Mima/m/sa-sutras to conclude the discussion of contested points with the statement of that view which is to be accepted as the authoritative one. This is so patent that /S/[email protected] 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 /S/[email protected]'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 /S/[email protected]'s sense.

If we have not to discriminate between a lower and a higher knowledge of Brahman, it follows that the distinction 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 investigation--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 a.s.sociation with which the highest Brahman, in itself transcending all qualities, appears as the lower Brahman or i/s/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 interpretations than to the indications furnished by the Sutras themselves.

Placing myself at the point of view of a /S/[email protected], 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 Brahman, we are inclined to answer, whose cognition the first Sutra declares to const.i.tute the task of the entire Vedanta; that Brahman whose cognition is the only road to final release; that Brahman in fact which /S/[email protected] 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 Maya 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/k/-/k/id-ananda, or, to mention one individual instance, refer to the introductory /s/lokas of the Pa/nk/ada/s/i dilating on the sa/m/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 /S/[email protected] be accepted only as a definition of i/s/vara, of Brahman which by its a.s.sociation with Maya is enabled to project the false appearance of this world, and it certainly is as improbable that the Sutras 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 conclude 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 Brahman as one only, as the all-enfolding being which sometimes emits the world from its own substance and sometimes again retracts it into itself, ever remaining one in all its 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 un.o.bjectionable.

We next enquire whether the impression left on the mind by the manner in which Badaraya/n/a defines Brahman, viz. that he does not distinguish between an absolute Brahman and a Brahman a.s.sociated with Maya, is confirmed or weakened by any other parts of his work. The Sutras being throughout far from direct in their enunciations, 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 Sutrakara against the [email protected] 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 Sutras are indeed almost unintelligible if taken by themselves, but the unanimity of the commentators as to their meaning enables us to use them as steps in our investigation. The sixth Sutra of the pada mentioned replies to the [email protected] 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 argumentation of this kind is altogether out of place from the point of view of the true /S/[email protected] 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 a.s.sociated 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 prak/ri/ti of the [email protected] Similarly the ill.u.s.trative instances, adduced under Sutra 9 for the purpose of showing that effects when being reabsorbed into their causal substances 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 /S/[email protected] the world is not merged in Brahman, but the special forms into which the upadana of the world, i.e. Maya, had modified itself are merged in non-distinct Maya, whose relation to Brahman is not changed thereby.--The ill.u.s.tration, again, given in Sutra 24 of the mode in which Brahman, by means of its inherent power, transforms itself into the world without employing any extraneous instruments of action, 'kshiravad 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 a.n.a.logous instance given in the Sutra next following, 'as G.o.ds 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 ill.u.s.trate a theory which considers unreality to be the true character of the world. The mere c.u.mulation of the two essentially heterogeneous ill.u.s.trative instances (kshiravad dhi; devadivat), 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.[23]

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 the place to indicate, had such been the author's 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 'pari/n/amat;' Brahman 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/n/avada' was used to denote that very theory to which the followers of /S/[email protected] 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 Brahman undergoing a real change, may that change be conceived to take place in the way taught by Ramanuja 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 expression are apparently opposed to the vivartavada are in reality reconcilable with it; to Sutra 26, for instance, Govindananda remarks that the term 'pari/n/ama' only denotes an effect in general (karyamatra), without implying that the effect is real. But in cases of this nature we are fully ent.i.tled to use our own judgment, even if we were not compelled to do so by the fact that other commentators, such as Ramanuja, are satisfied to take 'pari/n/ama' 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 /S/[email protected]'s view, of special importance, as it is alleged to set forth that Brahman is in itself dest.i.tute 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 /S/[email protected] 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 /S/[email protected] The wording of the Sutras is so eminently concise and vague that I find it impossible to decide which of the two commentators--if indeed either--is to be accepted as a trustworthy guide; regarding the sense of some Sutras /S/[email protected]'s explanation seems to deserve preference, in the case of others Ramanuja 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 'prak/ri/taitavattvam,' whose proper force is brought out by Ramanuja's explanation only. So much is certain that none of the Sutras decidedly favours the interpretation proposed by /S/[email protected] 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 interpreters had less regard to the literal sense of the words and to tradition than to their desire of forcing Badaraya/n/a's Sutras to bear testimony to the truth of their own philosophic theories.

With special reference to the Maya doctrine one important Sutra has yet to be considered, the only one in which the term 'maya' itself occurs, viz. III, 2, 3. According to /S/[email protected] the Sutra signifies that the environments of the dreaming soul are not real but mere Maya, i.e.

unsubstantial 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 /S/[email protected]'s views we may for the time accept /S/[email protected]'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 surrounding the waking soul must not be called Maya. But that the world perceived by waking men is Maya, even in a higher sense than the world presented to the dreaming consciousness, is an undoubted tenet of the /S/[email protected] Vedanta; and the Sutra therefore proves either that Badaraya/n/a 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 in which /S/[email protected] employs it.--If, on the other hand, we, with Ramanuja, understand the word 'maya' to denote a wonderful thing, the Sutra of course has no bearing whatever on the doctrine of Maya in its later technical sense.

We now turn to the question as to the relation of the individual soul to Brahman. Do the Sutras indicate anywhere that their author held /S/[email protected]'s doctrine, according to which the jiva 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 const.i.tute elements of its nature, yet enjoy a kind of individual existence 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 Sutras in which the size of the individual soul is discussed can hardly be understood in /S/[email protected]'s sense, and rather seem to favour the opinion, held among others by Ramanuja, that the soul is of minute size. We have further seen that Sutra 18 of the third pada of the second adhyaya, which describes the soul as 'j/n/a,' is more appropriately understood in the sense a.s.signed to it by Ramanuja; and, again, that the Sutras which treat of the soul being an agent, can be reconciled with /S/[email protected]'s views only if supplemented in a way which their text does not appear to authorise.--We next have the important Sutra II, 3, 43 in which the soul is distinctly said to be a part (a/ms/a) of Brahman, and which, as we have already noticed, can be made to fall in with /S/[email protected]'s views only if a/ms/a is explained, altogether arbitrarily, by 'a/ms/a iva,'

while Ramanuja is able to take the Sutra as it stands.--We also have already referred to Sutra 50, 'abhasa eva /k/a,' which /S/[email protected] interprets as setting forth the so-called pratibimbavada according to which the individual 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 aphorism, the general drift and spirit of the whole work, and that, as we have seen hitherto, is by no means favourable to the pratibimba doctrine. How indeed could Sutra 50, if setting forth that latter doctrine, be reconciled with Sutra 43, which says distinctly that the soul is a part of Brahman? For that 43 contains, as /S/[email protected] and his commentators aver, a statement of the ava/kkh/edavada, can itself be accepted only if we interpret a/ms/a by a/ms/a 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 pa.s.sages 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 Sutra cannot, at any rate, be appealed to as proving that the pratibimbavada which, in its turn, presupposes the mayavada, is the teaching of the Sutras.

To the conclusion that the Sutrakara did not hold the doctrine of the absolute ident.i.ty of the highest and the individual soul in the sense of /S/[email protected], 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, 22, 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. a.n.a.logously I, 2, 20 lays stress on the fact that the /s/arira is not the antaryamin, because the Madhyandinas, as well as the Ka/n/vas, speak of him in their texts as different (bhedena enam adhiyate), and in 22 the /s/arira 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 pa.s.sages (I, 1, 16; I, 3, 16; II, 1, 21) as a kind of technical term denoting the individual soul in contradistinction from the Lord. The /S/[email protected] indeed maintain that all those pa.s.sages refer to an unreal distinction 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 interpretations of the school of /S/[email protected], it remains altogether unintelligible why the Sutrakara should never hint even at what /S/[email protected] 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 /S/[email protected]'s mode of interpretation. But no such reasons are forthcoming; nowhere among the avowed followers of the /S/[email protected] 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/d/apada 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 pa.s.sage concerning the relation of the individual soul to the highest Self, a pa.s.sage 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, 20-22, which three Sutras state the views of a/s/marathya, Au/d/ulomi, and Ka/s/akr/ri/tsna as to the reason why, in a certain pa.s.sage of the B/ri/hadara/n/yaka, characteristics of the individual soul are ascribed to the highest Self. The siddhanta view is enounced in Sutra 22, 'avasthiter iti Ka/s/ak/ri/tsna/h/' i.e. Ka/s/ak/ri/tsna (accounts for the circ.u.mstance mentioned) on the ground of the 'permanent abiding or abode.' By this 'permanent abiding' /S/[email protected] 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 enunciation of his own view that the individual soul is nothing but the highest Self, 'avik/ri/ta/h/ parame/s/varo jivo nanya/h/.' Ramanuja on the other hand, likewise accepting Ka/saak/ri/tsna's opinion as the siddhanta view, explains 'avasthiti' as the Lord's permanent abiding within the individual soul, as described in the antaryamin-brahma/n/a.--We can hardly maintain that the term 'avasthiti' cannot have the meaning ascribed to it by [email protected]/n/kara, viz. special state or condition, but so much must be urged in favour of Ramanuja's interpretation that in the five other places where avasthiti (or anavasthiti) 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 preceding enquiry as to the teaching of the Sutras, I must give it as my opinion that they do not set forth the distinction of a higher and lower knowledge of Brahman; that they do not acknowledge the distinction of Brahman and i/s/vara in /S/[email protected]'s sense; that they do not hold the doctrine of the unreality of the world; and that they do not, with /S/[email protected], proclaim the absolute ident.i.ty 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 /S/[email protected]'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 /S/[email protected], 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/n/a had greater affinities with that of the Bhagavatas and Ramanuja than with the one of which the /S/[email protected] is the cla.s.sical 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 as to the nature of the philosophical doctrine advocated by Badaraya/n/a. The reason of this is that the greater part of the work is taken up with matters which, according to /S/[email protected]'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 circ.u.mstance is not without significance. In later works belonging to /S/[email protected]'s school in which the distinction of a higher and lower vidya is clearly recognised, the topics const.i.tuting 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 vidya 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/n/a, 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 certainly feel ourselves confirmed in our conclusion that what /S/[email protected] looked upon as comparatively unimportant formed in Badaraya/n/a's opinion part of that knowledge higher than which there is none, and which therefore is ent.i.tled 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 commentaries, 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 teaching 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 enigmatical aphorisms of Badaraya/n/a.[24]

I do not, however, consider this line of argumentation a safe one. Even if it could be shown that the teaching of all the chief Upanishads agrees in all essential points (a subject to which some attention will be paid later on), we should not on that account be ent.i.tled unhesitatingly to a.s.sume that the Sutras set forth the same doctrine.

Whatever the true philosophy of the Upanishads may be, there remains the undeniable fact that there exist and have existed since very ancient times not one but several essentially differing systems, all of which lay claim to the distinction of being the true representatives of the teaching of the Upanishads as well as of the Sutras. Let us suppose, for argument's sake, that, for instance, the doctrine of Maya is distinctly enunciated in the Upanishads; nevertheless Ramanuja and, for all we know to the contrary, the whole series of more ancient commentators on whom he looked as authorities in the interpretation of the Sutras, denied that the Upanishads teach Maya, and it is hence by no means impossible that Badaraya/n/a should have done the same. The a priori style of reasoning as to the teaching of the Sutras is therefore without much force.

But apart from any intention of arriving thereby at the meaning of the Sutras there, of course, remains for us the all-important question as to the true teaching of the Upanishads, a question which a translator of the Sutras and /S/[email protected] cannot afford to pa.s.s over in silence, especially after reason has been shown for the conclusion that the Sutras and the /S/[email protected] do not agree concerning most important points of Vedantic doctrine. The Sutras as well as the later commentaries claim, in the first place, to be nothing more than systematisations of the Upanishads, and for us a considerable part at least of their value and interest lies in this their nature. Hence the further question presents itself by whom the teaching of the Upanishads has been most adequately systematised, whether by Badaraya/n/a, or /S/[email protected], or Ramanuja, or some other commentator. This question requires to be kept altogether separate from the enquiry as to which commentator most faithfully renders the contents of the Sutras, and it is by no means impossible that /S/[email protected], for instance, should in the end have to be declared a more trustworthy guide with regard to the teaching of the Upanishads than concerning the meaning of the Sutras.

We must remark here at once that, whatever commentator may be found to deserve preference on the whole, it appears fairly certain already at the outset that none of the systems which Indian ingenuity has succeeded in erecting on the basis of the Upanishads can be accepted in its entirety. The reason for this lies in the nature of the Upanishads themselves. To the Hindu commentator and philosopher the Upanishads came down as a body of revealed truth whose teaching had, somehow or other, to be shown to be thoroughly consistent and free from contradictions; a system had to be devised in which a suitable place could be allotted to every one of the mult.i.tudinous statements which they make on the various points of Vedantic doctrine. But to the European scholar, or in fact to any one whose mind is not bound by the doctrine of /S/ruti, it will certainly appear that all such attempts stand self-condemned. If anything is evident even on a cursory review of the Upanishads--and the impression so created is only strengthened by a more careful investigation--it is that they do not const.i.tute a systematic whole.

They themselves, especially the older ones, give the most unmistakable indications on that point. Not only are the doctrines expounded in the different Upanishads ascribed to different teachers, but even the separate sections of one and the same Upanishad are a.s.signed to different authorities. It would be superfluous to quote examples of what a mere look at the Chandogya Upanishad, for instance, suffices to prove.

It is of course not impossible that even a mult.i.tude of teachers should agree in imparting precisely the same doctrine; but in the case of the Upanishads that is certainly not antecedently probable. For, in the first place, the teachers who are credited with the doctrines of the Upanishads manifestly belonged to different sections of Brahminical society, to different Vedic /s/akhas; nay, some of them the tradition makes out to have been kshattriyas. And, in the second place, the period, whose mental activity is represented in the Upanishads, was a creative one, and as such cannot be judged according to the a.n.a.logy of later periods of Indian philosophic development. The later philosophic schools as, for instance, the one of which /S/[email protected] is the great representative, were no longer free in their speculations, but strictly bound by a traditional body of texts considered sacred, which could not be changed or added to, but merely systematised and commented upon.

Hence the rigorous uniformity of doctrine characteristic of those schools. But there had been a time when, what later writers received as a sacred legacy, determining and confining the whole course of their speculations, first sprang from the minds of creative thinkers not fettered by the tradition of any school, but freely following the promptings of their own heads and hearts. By the absence of school traditions, I do not indeed mean that the great teachers who appear in the Upanishads were free to make an entirely new start, and to a.s.sign to their speculations any direction they chose; for nothing can be more certain than that, at the period as the outcome of whose philosophical activity the Upanishads have to be considered, there were in circulation certain broad speculative ideas overshadowing the mind of every member of Brahminical society. But those ideas were neither very definite nor worked out in detail, and hence allowed themselves to be handled and fashioned in different ways by different individuals. With whom the few leading conceptions traceable in the teaching of all Upanishads first originated, is a point on which those writings themselves do not enlighten us, and which we have no other means for settling; most probably they are to be viewed not as the creation of any individual mind, but as the gradual outcome of speculations carried on by generations of Vedic theologians. In the Upanishads themselves, at any rate, they appear as floating mental possessions which may be seized and moulded into new forms by any one who feels within himself the required inspiration. A certain vague knowledge of Brahman, the great hidden being in which all this manifold world is one, seems to be spread everywhere, and often issues from the most unexpected sources.

/S/vetaketu receives instruction from his father Uddalaka; the proud Gargya has to become the pupil of Ajata/s/atru, the king of Ka/s/i; Bhujyu Sahyayani receives answers to his questions from a Gandharva possessing a maiden; Satyakama learns what Brahman is from the bull of the herd he is tending, from Agni and from a flamingo; and Upako/s/ala is taught by the sacred fires in his teacher's house. All this is of course legend, not history; but the fact that the philosophic and theological doctrines of the Upanishads are clothed in this legendary garb certainly does not strengthen the expectation of finding in them a rigidly systematic doctrine.

And a closer investigation of the contents of the Upanishads amply confirms this preliminary impression. If we avail ourselves, for instance, of M. Paul Regnaud's Materiaux pour servir a l'Histoire de la Philosophie de l'Inde, in which the philosophical lucubrations of the different Upanishads are arranged systematically according to topics, we can see with ease how, together with a certain uniformity of general leading conceptions, there runs throughout divergence in details, and very often not unimportant details. A look, for instance, at the collection of pa.s.sages relative to the origination of the world from the primitive being, suffices to show that the task of demonstrating that whatever the Upanishads teach on that point can be made to fit into a h.o.m.ogeneous system is an altogether hopeless one. The accounts there given of the creation belong, beyond all doubt to different stages of philosophic and theological development or else to different sections of priestly society. None but an Indian commentator would, I suppose, be inclined and sufficiently courageous to attempt the proof that, for instance, the legend of the atman purushavidha, the Self in the shape of a person which is as large as man and woman together, and then splits itself into two halves from which cows, horses, a.s.ses, goats, &c. are produced in succession (B/ri/. Up. I, 1, 4), can be reconciled with the account given of the creation in the Chandogya Upanishad, where it is said that in the beginning there existed nothing but the sat, 'that which is,' and that feeling a desire of being many it emitted out of itself ether, and then all the other elements in due succession. The former is a primitive cosmogonic myth, which in its details shows striking a.n.a.logies with the cosmogonic myths of other nations; the latter account is fairly developed Vedanta (although not Vedanta implying the Maya doctrine). We may admit that both accounts show a certain fundamental similarity in so far as they derive the manifold world from one original being; but to go beyond this and to maintain, as /S/[email protected] does, that the atman purushavidha of the B/ri/hadara/n/yaka is the so-called Virag of the latter Vedanta--implying thereby that that section consciously aims at describing only the activity of one special form of i/s/vara, and not simply the whole process of creation--is the ingenious shift of an orthodox commentator in difficulties, but nothing more.

How all those more or less conflicting texts came to be preserved and handed down to posterity, is not difficult to understand. As mentioned above, each of the great sections of Brahminical priesthood had its own sacred texts, and again in each of those sections there existed more ancient texts which it was impossible to discard when deeper and more advanced speculations began in their turn to be embodied in literary compositions, which in the course of time likewise came to be looked upon as sacred. When the creative period had reached its termination, and the task of collecting and arranging was taken in hand, older and newer pieces were combined into wholes, and thus there arose collections of such heterogeneous character as the Chandogya and B/ri/hadara/n/yaka Upanishads. On later generations, to which the whole body of texts came down as revealed truth, there consequently devolved the inevitable task of establishing systems on which no exception could be taken to any of the texts; but that the task was, strictly speaking, an impossible one, i.e. one which it was impossible to accomplish fairly and honestly, there really is no reason to deny.

For a comprehensive criticism of the methods which the different commentators employ in systematizing the contents of the Upanishads there is no room in this place. In order, however, to ill.u.s.trate what is meant by the 'impossibility,' above alluded to, of combining the various doctrines of the Upanishads into a whole without doing violence to a certain number of texts, it will be as well to a.n.a.lyse in detail some few at least of /S/[email protected]'s interpretations, and to render clear the considerations by which he is guided.

We begin with a case which has already engaged our attention when discussing the meaning of the Sutras, viz. the question concerning the ultimate fate of those who have attained the knowledge of Brahman. As we have seen, /S/[email protected] teaches that the soul of him who has risen to an insight into the nature of the higher Brahman does not, at the moment of death, pa.s.s out of the body, but is directly merged in Brahman by a process from which all departing and moving, in fact all considerations of s.p.a.ce, are altogether excluded. The soul of him, on the other hand, who has not risen above the knowledge of the lower qualified Brahman departs from the body by means of the artery called sushum/n/a, and following the so-called devayana, the path of the G.o.ds, mounts up to the world of Brahman. A review of the chief Upanishad texts on which /S/[email protected] founds this distinction will show how far it is justified.

In a considerable number of pa.s.sages the Upanishads contrast the fate of two cla.s.ses of men, viz. of those who perform sacrifices and meritorious works only, and of those who in addition possess a certain kind of knowledge. Men of the former kind ascend after death to the moon, where they live for a certain time, and then return to the earth into new forms of embodiment; persons of the latter kind proceed on the path of the G.o.ds--on which the sun forms one stage--up to the world of Brahman, from which there is no return. The chief pa.s.sages to that effect are Ch.

Up. V, 10; Kaush. Up. I, 2 ff.; Mu/nd/. Up. I, 2, 9 ff.; B/ri/. Up. VI, 2, 15 ff.; Pra/s/na Up. I, 9 ff.--In other pa.s.sages only the latter of the two paths is referred to, cp. Ch. Up. IV, 15; VIII 6, 5; Taitt. Up.

I, 6; B/ri/. Up. IV, 4, 8, 9; V, 10; Maitr. Up. VI, 30, to mention only the more important ones.

Now an impartial consideration of those pa.s.sages shows I think, beyond any doubt, that what is meant there by the knowledge which leads through the sun to the world of Brahman is the highest knowledge of which the devotee is capable, and that the world of Brahman to which his knowledge enables him to proceed denotes the highest state which he can ever reach, the state of final release, if we choose to call it by that name.--Ch. Up. V, 10 says, 'Those who know this (viz. the doctrine of the five fires), and those who in the forest follow faith and austerities go to light,' &c.--Ch. Up. IV, 15 is manifestly intended to convey the true knowledge of Brahman; Upako/s/ala's teacher himself represents the instruction given by him as superior to the teaching of the sacred fires.--Ch. Up. VIII, 6, 5 quotes the old /s/loka which says that the man moving upwards by the artery penetrating the crown of the head reaches the Immortal.--Kaush. Up. I, 2--which gives the most detailed account of the ascent of the soul--contains no intimation whatever of the knowledge of Brahman, which leads up to the Brahman world, being of an inferior nature.--Mu/nd/. Up. I, 2, 9 agrees with the Chandogya in saying that 'Those who practise penance and faith in the forest, tranquil, wise, and living on alms, depart free from pa.s.sion, through the sun, to where that immortal Person dwells whose nature is imperishable,' and nothing whatever in the context countenances the a.s.sumption that not the highest knowledge and the highest Person are there referred to.--B/ri/. Up. IV, 4, 8 quotes old /s/lokas clearly referring to the road of the G.o.ds ('the small old path'), on which 'sages who know Brahman move on to the svargaloka and thence higher on as entirely free.--That path was found by Brahman, and on it goes whoever knows Brahman.'--B/ri/. Up. VI, 2, 15 is another version of the Pa/nk/agnividya, with the variation, 'Those who know this, and those who in the forest worship faith and the True, go to light,' &c.--Pra/s/na Up. 1, 10 says, 'Those who have sought the Self by penance, abstinence, faith, and knowledge gain by the northern path aditya, the sun. There is the home of the spirits, the immortal free from danger, the highest.

From thence they do not return, for it is the end.'--Maitr. Up. VI, 30 quotes /s/lokas, 'One of them (the arteries) leads upwards, piercing the solar orb: by it, having stepped beyond the world of Brahman, they go to the highest path.'

All these pa.s.sages are as clear as can be desired. The soul of the sage who knows Brahman pa.s.ses out by the sushum/n/a, and ascends by the path of the G.o.ds to the world of Brahman, there to remain for ever in some blissful state. But, according to /S/[email protected], all these texts are meant to set forth the result of a certain inferior knowledge only, of the knowledge of the conditioned Brahman. Even in a pa.s.sage apparently so entirely incapable of more than one interpretation as B/ri/. Up. VI, 2, 15, the 'True,' which the holy hermits in the forest are said to worship, is not to be the highest Brahman, but only Hira/n/yagarbha!--And why?--Only because the system so demands it, the system which teaches that those who know the highest Brahman become on their death one with it, without having to resort to any other place.

The pa.s.sage on which this latter tenet is chiefly based is B/ri/. Up.

IV, 4, 6, 7, where, with the fate of him who at his death has desires, and whose soul therefore enters a new body after having departed from the old one, accompanied by all the pra/n/as, there is contrasted the fate of the sage free from all desires. 'But as to the man who does not desire, who not desiring, freed from desires is satisfied in his desires, or desires the Self only, the vital spirits of him (tasya) do not depart--being Brahman he goes to Brahman.'

We have seen above (p. lx.x.x) that this pa.s.sage is referred to in the important Sutras on whose right interpretation it, in the first place, depends whether or not we must admit the Sutrakara to have acknowledged the distinction of a para and an apara vidya. Here the pa.s.sage interests us as throwing light on the way in which /S/[email protected] systematises. He looks on the preceding part of the chapter as describing what happens to the souls of all those who do not know the highest Brahman, inclusive of those who know the lower Brahman only. They pa.s.s out of the old bodies followed by all pra/n/as and enter new bodies. He, on the other hand, section 6 continues, who knows the true Brahman, does not pa.s.s out of the body, but becomes one with Brahman then and there. This interpretation of the purport of the entire chapter is not impossibly right, although I am rather inclined to think that the chapter aims at setting forth in its earlier part the future of him who does not know Brahman at all, while the latter part of section 6 pa.s.ses on to him who does know Brahman (i.e. Brahman pure and simple, the text knowing of no distinction of the so-called lower and higher Brahman). In explaining section 6 /S/ lays stress upon the clause 'na tasya pra/n/a utkramanti,' 'his vital spirits do not pa.s.s out,' taking this to signify that the soul with the vital spirits does not move at all, and thus does not ascend to the world of Brahman; while the purport of the clause may simply be that the soul and vital spirits do not go anywhere else, i.e.