The Vedânta-Sûtras, Part II, with the Commentary by Sankarâkârya — SBE Vol. 38
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The translator’s English as printed (George Thibaut). The original-language text is not held; names are romanised as the translator printed them.
To this we make the following reply. Repetition would indeed be useless for him who is able to cognize the true nature of Brahman even if enounced once only in the sentence ' Thou art that.' But he who is not able to do that, for him repetition is of use. For this reason the teacher in the K/iandogya, having given instruction in the sentence ' Thou art that, O 5vetaketu,' and being again and again asked by his pupil — ' Please, sir, inform me still more ' — removes his pupil's reasons for doubt, and again and again repeats the instruction ' Thou art that.' We have already given an analogous explanation of the passage ' The Self is to be heard, to be thought, to be reflected upon.' — But has not the purvapakshin declared that if the first enunciation of the sentence ' Thou art that ' is not able to effect an intuition of its sense, repetition will likeIV ADHYAYA, 1PADA, 2. 335 wise fail of the desired effect ? — This objection, we reply, is without force, because the alleged impossibility is not confirmed by observation. For we observe that men by again and again repeating a sentence which they, on the first hearing, had understood imperfectly only, gradually rid themselves of all misconceptions and arrive at a full understanding of the true sense. — Moreover the sentence ' Thou art that ' teaches that what is denoted by the term ' thou ' is identical with what is denoted by ' that.' Now the latter term denotes the subject of the entire section, viz. the thinking Brahman which is the cause of the origin and so on of the world ; which is known from other passages such as 'Brahman which is true knowledge, infinite' (Taitt. Up. II, 1) ; ' Brahman that is knowledge and bliss ' (Bn. Up. Ill, 9, 28) ; ' That Brahman is unseen, but seeing ; unknown, but knowing' (Br?. Up. Ill, 8, 11); 'not produced' (Mu. Up. II, 1,2); ' not subject to old age, not subject to death ^ (Br/. Up. IV, 4, 25) ; ' not coarse, not fine ; not short, not long ' (Brz. Up. Ill, 8, 8). In these passages terms such as 'not produced ' deny the different phases of existence such as origination ; such terms as ' not coarse ' deny of it the qualities of substances such as coarseness ; and such terms as ' knowledge' declare that the luminousness of intelligence constitutes its nature. The entity thus described — which is free from all the qualities of transmigratory existence, has consciousness for its Self and is called Brahman — is known, by all students of the Vedanta, as what is denoted by the term ' that.' They likewise know that what is denoted by the term ' thou ' is the inward Self (pratyagatman) ; which is the agent in seeing and hearing, is (successively) apprehended as the inward Self of all the outward involucra beginning with the gross body (cp. Taitt. Up.), and finally ascertained as of the nature of intelligence. Now in the case of those persons for whom the meaning of these two terms is obstructed by ignorance, doubt, and misconception, the sentence ' Thou art that ' cannot produce a right knowledge of its sense, since the knowledge of the sense of a sentence presupposes the knowledge of the sense of the words ; for them therefore the repetition of the scriptural
33^ vedanta-sOtras.
text and of reasoning must be assumed to have a purpose, viz. the discernment of the true sense of the words. — And although the object to be known, viz. the Self, does not consist of parts, yet men wrongly superimpose upon it the attribute of being made up of many parts, such as the body, the senses, the manas, the buddhi, the objects of the senses, the sensations, and so on. Now by one act of attention we may discard one of these parts, and by another act of attention another part ; so that a successively progressing cognition may very well take place. This however is merely an antecedent of the (true) knowledge of the Self (in which there can be no successive stages).
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