The Vedânta-Sûtras, Part II, with the Commentary by Sankarâkârya — SBE Vol. 38

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— an identity to be realised by knowledge — there is not any chance of its obtaining final release. Scripture, moreover (in the passage, 'There is no other way to go,' Svet. Up.

III, 8), denies that there is any other way to release but knowledge. — But if the soul is non-different from the highest Brahman, all practical existence comes to an end, because then perception and the other means of right knowledge no longer act ! — Not so, we reply. Practical life will hold its place even then, just as dreamlife holds its place up to the moment of waking. Scripture, after having said that perception and the rest are operative in the sphere of those who have not reached true knowledge (' For where there is duality, as it were, there one sees the other,' &c. ; Brt. Up.

IV, 5, 15), goes on to show that those means of knowledge do not exist for those who possess that knowledge (' But when the whole of him has become the Self, whereby should he see another,' &c.). As thus for him who knows the highest Brahman all cognition of something to be gone to, &c. is sublated, his going cannot in any way be shown to be possible.

To what sphere then belong the scriptural texts about the soul's going? — To the sphere of qualified knowledge, we reply. Accordingly the soul's going is mentioned in the chapter treating of the knowledge of the five fires, in the chapter treating of the knowledge of Brahman's couch, in the chapter treating of the knowledge of Agni Vai^vanara {K/i. Up. V, 3-10; Kau. Up. I; AV/. Up. V, 1 1-24). And where the soul's going is spoken of in a chapter treating of Brahman— (as e.g. in the passages, ' He leads them to Brahman,' &c., K/i. Up. IV, 15, 6, in a chapter treating of Brahman, as shown by ' Breath is Brahman,' &c., IV, 10, 5; and 'He departs upward,' &c., K/i. Up. VIII, 6, 5, in the chapter beginning ' There is this city of Brahman,' VIII, i, i) — such attributes as 'vamani,' i.e. Leader of blessings {K/i. Up. IV, iS, 3), and 'satyakama,' i.e. having true wishes, show that there the qualified Brahman has to be meditated upon, and to that Brahman the soul can go. No passage, on the other hand, speaks of the soul's going to the highest Brahman ; while such going is specially

IV ADHVAVA, 3 PAD A, 1 4. 4OI

denied in the passage, ' Of him the pra//as do not depart.' In passages, again, such as ' He who knows Brahman obtains the Highest' (Taitt. Up. H, i), we indeed meet with the verb 'to reach/ which has the sense of going; but because, as explained before, the reaching of another place is out of question, ' reaching ' there denotes only the obtainment (realisation) of one's own nature, in so far as (through true knowledge) the expanse of names and forms which Nescience superimposes (on Brahman) is dissolved. Such passages are to be understood analogously to the text, ' Being Brahman he enters into Brahman ' (Br/. Up. IV, 4, 6). — Besides, if the going were understood as connected with the highest Brahman, it could only subserve the purpose either of satisfying (the mind of him who knows) or of reflection. Now, a statement of the soul's going cannot produce any satisfaction in him who knows Brahman, since satisfaction is already fully accomplished through his perfect condition, bestowed on him by knowledge, of which he is immediately conscious. Nor, on the other hand, can it be shown that reflection on the soul's going in any way subserves knowledge, which is conscious of eternally perfect blessedness, and has not for its fruit something to be accomplished. — For all these reasons the soul's going falls within the sphere of the lower knowledge. And only in consequence of the distinction of the higher and lower Brahman not being ascertained, statements about the soul's going which apply to the lower Brahman are wrongly put in connexion with the higher Brahman.