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Romanised transliteration as printed by the translator, not the original script. This is what we hold.
1ikara^as and Sutras concerning whose interpretation vSankara and Ramanu^a 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 1 3th adhikara^a of II, 3, which treats of the size of the ^iva, and where Ramanu^a's explanation seems to be decidedly superior to 6ahkara's, both if we look to the arrangement of the whole adhikara^a and to the wording of the single Sutras. The adhikara/za is, moreover, a specially important one, be- cause the nature of the view held as to the size of the indi- vidual soul goes far to settle the question what kind of Vedanta is embodied in Badaraya^a's work. But it will be requisite not only to dwell on the interpre- tations 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 vSankara as well as Ramanu^a. 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 com- mentators, will not be without its value. lxxxvill VEDANTA-SlJTRAS. The first question we wish to consider in some detail is whether the Sutras in any way favour .Sankara's doctrine that we have to distinguish a twofold knowledge of Brah- man, 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 5ankara 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 Ramanu^-a, on the other hand, the three padas, referring throughout to one subject only, give an uninterrupted account of the succes- sive steps by which the soul of him who knows the Lord through the Upanishads passes, 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#zsara.
2the succes- sive steps by which the soul of him who knows the Lord through the Upanishads passes, 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#zsara. 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 unbiassed student of the Sutras would — before having allowed himself to be influenced by Sankara'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 fictitious sa/^sara, INTRODUCTION. lxXXlX 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 .Sarikara connects with the knowledge of the higher Brahman. How these Sutras are interpreted by 6ankara and Ramanu^a has been stated above in the con- spectus of contents ; the points which render the interpre- tation given by Ramanu^a 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- nu^-a, as furnishing a reason for the opinion advanced in the preceding Sutra, 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 vSahkara's interpretation, denote the very same persons to whom the preceding Sutra had referred, viz.
3statement (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 vSahkara'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 Bri. 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 ^akhas, teachers, &c. other than those alluded to in the preceding Sutras. With this practice Ramanu^a's interpretation, on the other hand, fully agrees ; for, according to him, the ' eke ' are the Ma- dhyandinas, whose reading in Bri. Up. IV, 4, 5, viz. c tasmat,' clearly indicates that the 'tasya' in the corresponding passage of the Ka^vas denotes the j-arira, i.e. the ^iva. I think it is not saying too much that .Sankara's explana- tion, according to which the * eke ' would denote the very same Ka^vas to whom the preceding Sutra had referred- — so that the Ka?zvas would be distinguished from themselves as it were — is altogether impossible. The result of this closer consideration of the first set of XC VEDANTA-StJTRAS. Sutras, alleged by vSahkara to concern the owner of the higher knowledge of Brahman, entitles us to view with some distrust 6ankara'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 adhikara^a 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 ke£in muhyanti skhanda- ^inmatra^anan muktasya^anabhavat kuta a^Tzanika- dharmayoga^,' and the way in which thereupon he himself attempts to get over the difficulty certainly does not improve matters.
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
Romanised transliteration as printed by the translator, not the original script. This is what we hold.
1ikara^as and Sutras concerning whose interpretation vSankara and Ramanu^a 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 1 3th adhikara^a of II, 3, which treats of the size of the ^iva, and where Ramanu^a's explanation seems to be decidedly superior to 6ahkara's, both if we look to the arrangement of the whole adhikara^a and to the wording of the single Sutras. The adhikara/za is, moreover, a specially important one, be- cause the nature of the view held as to the size of the indi- vidual soul goes far to settle the question what kind of Vedanta is embodied in Badaraya^a's work. But it will be requisite not only to dwell on the interpre- tations 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 vSankara as well as Ramanu^a. 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 com- mentators, will not be without its value. lxxxvill VEDANTA-SlJTRAS. The first question we wish to consider in some detail is whether the Sutras in any way favour .Sankara's doctrine that we have to distinguish a twofold knowledge of Brah- man, 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 5ankara 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 Ramanu^-a, on the other hand, the three padas, referring throughout to one subject only, give an uninterrupted account of the succes- sive steps by which the soul of him who knows the Lord through the Upanishads passes, 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#zsara.
2the succes- sive steps by which the soul of him who knows the Lord through the Upanishads passes, 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#zsara. 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 unbiassed student of the Sutras would — before having allowed himself to be influenced by Sankara'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 fictitious sa/^sara, INTRODUCTION. lxXXlX 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 .Sarikara connects with the knowledge of the higher Brahman. How these Sutras are interpreted by 6ankara and Ramanu^a has been stated above in the con- spectus of contents ; the points which render the interpre- tation given by Ramanu^a 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- nu^-a, as furnishing a reason for the opinion advanced in the preceding Sutra, 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 vSahkara's interpretation, denote the very same persons to whom the preceding Sutra had referred, viz.
3statement (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 vSahkara'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 Bri. 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 ^akhas, teachers, &c. other than those alluded to in the preceding Sutras. With this practice Ramanu^a's interpretation, on the other hand, fully agrees ; for, according to him, the ' eke ' are the Ma- dhyandinas, whose reading in Bri. Up. IV, 4, 5, viz. c tasmat,' clearly indicates that the 'tasya' in the corresponding passage of the Ka^vas denotes the j-arira, i.e. the ^iva. I think it is not saying too much that .Sankara's explana- tion, according to which the * eke ' would denote the very same Ka^vas to whom the preceding Sutra had referred- — so that the Ka?zvas would be distinguished from themselves as it were — is altogether impossible. The result of this closer consideration of the first set of XC VEDANTA-StJTRAS. Sutras, alleged by vSahkara to concern the owner of the higher knowledge of Brahman, entitles us to view with some distrust 6ankara'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 adhikara^a 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 ke£in muhyanti skhanda- ^inmatra^anan muktasya^anabhavat kuta a^Tzanika- dharmayoga^,' and the way in which thereupon he himself attempts to get over the difficulty certainly does not improve matters.
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
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