Turning next to the 5ankara-bMshya itself, we there also meet with indications that the Vedintins were divided among themselves on important points of dogma. These indications are indeed not numerous : 5ankara does not on the whole impress one as an author particularly anxious to strengthen his own case by appeals to ancient authorities, a peculiarity of his which later writers of hostile tendencies have not failed to remark and criticise. But yet more than once Sankara also refers to the opinion of ' another/ viz., commentator of the Sutras, and in several places Sankara's commentators explain that the ' other ' meant is the VWtti- k&ra (about whom more will be said shortly). Those references as a rule concern minor points of exegesis, and hence throw little or no light on important differences of dogma ; but there are two remarks of Ankara's at any rate which are of interest in this connexion. The one is made with reference to Sutras 7-14 of the third pada of the fourth adhyaya ; ' some/ he says there, ' declare those Sutras, which I look upon as setting forth the siddhanta view, to state merely the purvapaksha ; ' a difference of opinion which, as we have seen above, affects the important question as to the ultimate fate of those who have not reached the knowledge of the highest Brahman. — And under I, 3, 19 vSankara, after having explained at length that the individual soul as such cannot claim any reality, but is real only in so far as it is identical with Brahman, adds the following words, 'apare tu vadina^ paramarthikam eva ^aivaw rupam iti manyante asmadiyay ka. ke£it/ i.e. ' other theorisers again, and among them some of ours, are of opinion that the individual soul as such is real.' The term ' ours/ here made use of, can denote only the Aupanishadas or Vedantins, and it thus appears that .Sankara himself
Introduction. Xxi
was willing to class under the same category himself and philosophers who — as in later times the Ramanu^as and others — looked upon the individual soul as not due to the fictitious limitations of Miy&, but as real in itself ; whatever may be the relation in which they considered it to stand to the highest Self.
From what precedes it follows that the Vedantins of the school to which Sankara himself belonged acknowledged the existence of Vedantic teaching of a type essentially different from their own. We must now proceed to enquire whether the R&manug-a system, which likewise claims to be Ved&nta, and to be founded on the Vedanta-sutras, has any title to be considered an ancient system and the heir of a respectable tradition.
It appears that Rdmanu^a claims — and by Hindu writers is generally admitted — to follow in his bhashya the autho- rity of Bodhayana, who had composed a vrztti on the Sutras. Thus we read in the beginning of the Sri-bhashya (Pandit, New Series, VII, p. 163), ' Bhagavad-bodhayana- kritkm vistir/zam brahmasutra-wztti//z purv&£arya^ samki- kshipus tanmatanusdre^a sutrakshara/zi vyakhyasyante.' Whether the Bodhayana to whom that vritti is ascribed is to be identified with the author of the Kalpa-sutra, and other works, cannot at present be decided. But that an ancient vrztti on the Sutras connected with Bodh&yana's name actually existed, there is not any reason to doubt. Short quotations from it are met with in a few places of the Sri-bMshya, and, as we have seen above, Sankara's commentators state that their author's polemical remarks are directed against the Vnttikara. In addition to Bodhayana, Ramanu^a appeals to quite a series of ancient teachers — purvaMry&s — who carried on the true tradition as to the teaching of the Vedanta and the meaning of the Sutras. In the Ved&rthasangraha — a work composed by R^manu^a himself — we meet in one place with the enumeration of the following authorities : Bodhayana, 7anka, Drami^/a, Guhadeva, Kapardin, Bharu^i, and quotations from the writings of some of these are not unfrequent in the Vedarthasangraha, as well as the Sri-
Xxii VEDANTA-S^TRAS.
bh­a. The author most frequently quoted is Dramk/a 1, who composed the Dramu/a-bhashya ; he is sometimes referred to as the bhashyakara. Another writer repeatedly quoted as the vakyakara is, I am told 2, to be identified with the 7anka mentioned above. I refrain from inserting in this place the information concerning the relative age of these writers which may be derived from the oral tradition of the Ram^nu^a sect. From another source, however, we receive an intimation that Drami^a^arya or Dravu/aMrya preceded Sankara in point of time. In his /ikd on San- kara's bhashya to the .Oandogya Upanishad III, 10, 4, Anandagiri remarks that the attempt made by his author to reconcile the cosmological views of the Upanishad with the teaching of Smrzti on the same point is a reproduction of the analogous attempt made by the Dravida^arya.
It thus appears that that special interpretation of the Ved&nta-sutras with which the Sri-bhashya makes us acquainted is not due to innovating views on the part of R&manu^-a, but had authoritative representatives already at a period anterior to that of »Sankara. This latter point, moreover, receives additional confirmation from the relation in which the so-called Ramanu^a sect stands to earlier sects. What the exact position of Ramanu^a was, and of what nature were the reforms that rendered him so pro- minent as to give his name to a new sect, is not exactly known at present ; at the same time it is generally acknow- ledged that the R&manu^as are closely connected with the so-called Bhagavatas or Pa^aratras, who are known to have existed already at a very early time. This latter point is proved by evidence of various kinds ; for our present purpose it suffices to point to the fact that, according to the interpre- tation of the most authoritative commentators, the last
1 The name of this writer is sometimes given as Dramida, sometimes as Dravk/a. In the opinion of "Pandit R&ma Mijra Gastrin of the Benares College — himself a Ramanu^a and thoroughly conversant with the books and traditions of his sect — the form ' Drami^a' is the correct one.
2 Viz. by Pandit Rama Mi^ra Gastrin. As the "Pandit intends himself to publish all the traditional information he possesses concerning the history of the Bhagavatas and R&manu^as, I limit myself in the text to stating the most relevant results of my study of the Sri-bhashya and the Vedarthasangraha.
Introduction. Xxiu
Sutras of the second p&da of the second adhyaya (Ved&nta- sutras) refer to a distinctive tenet of the Bhagavatas — which tenet forms part of the R&manu^a system also — viz. that the highest being manifests itself in a fourfold form (vyuha) as Vasudeva, Sankarsha^a, Pradyumna, Aniruddha, those four forms being identical with the highest Self, the indi- vidual soul, the internal organ (manas), and the principle of egoity (ahank&ra). Whether those Sutras embody an approval of the tenet referred to, as Ramanu^a maintains, or are meant to impugn it, as vSankara thinks ; so much is certain that in the opinion of the best commentators the Bhagavatas, the direct forerunners of the Ramanu^-as, are mentioned in the Sutras themselves, and hence must not only have existed, but even reached a considerable degree of importance at the time when the Sutras were composed. And considering the general agreement of the systems of the earlier Bhagavatas and the later Ramanii^as, we have a full right to suppose that the two sects were at one also in their mode of interpreting the Vedanta-sutras.
The preceding considerations suffice, I am inclined to think, to show that it will by no means be wasted labour to enquire how Rclmanu^a interprets the Sutras, and wherein he differs from Sankara. This in fact seems clearly to be the first step we have to take, if we wish to make an attempt at least of advancing beyond the interpretations of scho- liasts to the meaning of the Sutras themselves. A full and exhaustive comparison of the views of the two com- mentators would indeed far exceed the limits of the space which can here be devoted to that task, and will, moreover, be made with greater ease and advantage when the complete Sanskrit text of the .SYi-bhashya has been printed, and thus made available for general reference. But meanwhile it is possible, and — as said before— even urged upon a translator of the Sutras to compare the interpretations, given by the two bh­akaras, of those Sutras, which, more than others, touch on the essential points of the Ved&nta system *. This
1 Owing to the importance of the 6ankara-bhashya as the fundamental work of the most influential Hindu school of philosophy, the number of topics which might be discussed in the introduction to its translation is considerable. But
Xxiv VEDANTA-SUTRAS.
What in .Sarikara's opinion the Upanishads teach, is shortly as follows. — Whatever is, is in reality one ; there truly exists only one universal being called Brahman or Paramatman, the highest Self. This being is of an abso- lutely homogeneous nature ; it is pure ' Being,' or, which comes to the same, pure intelligence or thought (^aitanya,
the limitation of the space at our disposal necessitates a selection, and it can hardly be doubted that, among the possible tasks of a translator, that of ascertaining how far the teaching of 6ankara agrees with that of Badaraya^a, and, further, how far either of them represents the true doctrine of the Upanishads, is the one first to be taken in hand. — Some other topics, such as a detailed account of Ankara's teaching according to the bhashya, an enquiry as to the books and authors quoted by .Sahkara, &c, have, moreover, been treated not long ago in a very thorough fashion by Dr. Deussen in his l System des Vedanta.'
Introduction. Xxv
gn&na). Intelligence or thought is not to be predicated of Brahman as its attribute, but constitutes its substance ; Brahman is not a thinking being, but thought itself. It is absolutely destitute of qualities; whatever qualities or attributes are conceivable, can only be denied of it. — But, if nothing exists but one absolutely simple being, whence the appearance of the world by which we see ourselves surrounded, and in which we ourselves exist as individual beings? — Brahman, the answer runs, is associated with a certain power called Maya or avidya to which the appearance of this entire world is due. This power cannot be called ' being ' (sat), for ' being ' is only Brahman ; nor can it be called * non-being' (asat) in the strict sense, for it at any rate produces the appearance of this world. It is in fact a prin- ciple of illusion ; the undefinable cause owing to which there seems to exist a material world comprehending distinct individual existences. Being associated with this principle of illusion, Brahman is enabled to project the appearance of the world, in the same way as a magician is enabled by his incomprehensible magical power to produce illusory ap- pearances of animate and inanimate beings. Maya thus constitutes the upadana, the material cause of the world ; or — if we wish to call attention to the circumstance that Maya belongs to Brahman as a ^akti — we may say that the material cause of the world is Brahman in so far as it is associated with Maya* In this latter quality Brahman is more properly called livara, the Lord.
Maya, under the guidance of the Lord, modifies itself by a progressive evolution into all the individual existences (bheda), distinguished by special names and forms, of which the world consists ; from it there spring in due succession the different material elements and the whole bodily apparatus belonging to sentient beings. In all those apparently individual forms of existence the one indivisible Brahman is present, but, owing to the particular adjuncts into which Maya has specialised itself, it appears to be broken up — it is broken up, as it were — into a multi- plicity of intellectual or sentient principles, the so-called ^ivas (individual or personal souls). What is real in each
xxvi vedAnta-s6tras.
giva. is only the universal Brahman itself; the whole
aggregate of individualising bodily organs and mental
functions, which in our ordinary experience separate and
distinguish one £iva from another, is the offspring of Maya
and as such unreal.