stances 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 5ankara 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 illus- tration, again, given in Sutra 24 of the mode in which Brah- man, 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 analogous instance given in the Sutra next following, ' as Gods 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 illustrate a theory which considers unreality to be the true character of the world. The mere cumulation of the two essentially heterogeneous illustrative 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 means1.
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
1 Ankara's favourite illustrative instance of the magician producing illusive sights is — significantly enough — not known to the Sutras.
Introduction. Xcv
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 'parkamat ;' 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/zamavada' was used to denote that very theory to which the followers of vSankara 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 Brah- man undergoing a real change, may that change be con- ceived to take place in the way taught by Ramanu^a 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 ex- pression are apparently opposed to the vivartavada are in reality reconcilable with it ; to Sutra 26, for instance, Govindananda remarks that the term ' pari^ama ' only denotes an effect in general (karyamatra), without implying that the effect is real. But in cases of this nature we are fully entitled to use our own judgment, even if we were not compelled to do so by the fact that other commentators, such as Ramanu^-a, are satisfied to take ' pari^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 Sankara's view, of special importance, as it is alleged to set forth that Brah- man is in itself destitute 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 5ankara on the one hand, and Ramanu^ci 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 6arikara. The wording of the Sutras is so eminently concise and vague that I find it impossible to decide which of the two commentators — if
XCV1 VEDANTA-stiTRAS.
indeed either — is to be accepted as a trustworthy guide ; regarding the sense of some Sutras 5ankara's explanation seems to deserve preference, in the case of others Rama- nu£"a seems to keep closer to the text. I decidedly prefer, for instance, Ramanu^a's interpretation of Sutra 22, as far as the sense of the entire Sutra is concerned, and more especially with regard to the term ' prakrztaitavat- tvam,' whose proper force is brought out by Rimanu^-a's explanation only. So much is certain that none of the Sutras decidedly favours the interpretation proposed by >Sankara. 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 inter- preters had less regard to the literal sense of the words and to tradition than to their desire of forcing Badaraya^a's Sutras to bear testimony to the truth of their own philo- sophic theories.
With special reference to the Mayd doctrine one impor- tant Sutra has yet to be considered, the only one in which the term 'maya' itself occurs, viz. Ill, 2, 3. According to vSahkara the Sutra signifies that the environments of the dreaming soul are not real but mere Maya, i. e. unsub- stantial illusion, because they do not fully manifest the character of real objects. Ramanu^a (as we have seen in the conspectus) gives a different explanation of the term ' maya/ but in judging of .Sankara's views we may for the time accept 5ankara'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 surround- ing 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 con- sciousness, is an undoubted tenet of the Sankara Vedanta ; and the Sutra therefore proves either that Badaraya/za 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
Introduction. Xcv11
in which Sankara employs it. — If, on the other hand, we, with R&manug-a, understand the word ' mkyk ' to denote a wonderful thing, the Sutra of course has no bearing what- ever on the doctrine of Mayd 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 any- where that their author held vSarikara's doctrine, according to which the ^iva 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 constitute elements of its nature, yet enjoy a kind of individual exist- ence 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 vSankara's sense, and rather seem to favour the opinion, held among others by Rama- nu£*a, that the soul is of minute size. We have further seen that Sutra 1 8 of the third p&da of the second adhyaya, which describes the soul as '^Tza,' is more appropriately under- stood in the sense assigned to it by Ramanu^a ; and, again, that the Sutras which treat of the soul being an agent, can be reconciled with Sankara'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 (aw^a) of Brahman, and which, as we have already noticed, can be made to fall in with vSankara's views only if a^j-a is explained, altogether arbitrarily, by fa^a iva,' while Ramanu^a is able to take the Sutra as it stands. — We also have already referred to Sutra 50,'abMsa eva £a/ which vSankara interprets as setting forth the so-called pratibimbavada according to which the indi- vidual 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 [34] g
xcviii vedanta-sAtras.
aphorism, the general drift and spirit of the whole work, and that, as we have seen hitherto, is by no means favour- able to the pratibimba doctrine. How indeed could Sutra 5°* 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 iankara and his commentators aver, a statement of the ava^Medavctda, can itself be ac- cepted only if we interpret amsa, by antss. iva, and to do so there is really no valid reason whatever. I confess that Ramanu^a'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 passages 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 pratibimbavcida which, in its turn, pre- supposes the miyavada, is the teaching of the Sutras.
To the conclusion that the Sutrakara did not hold the doctrine of the absolute identity of the highest and the individual soul in the sense of vSankara, 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, 1,23, 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. Analogously I, 2, 20 lays stress on the fact that the ^arira is not the antaryamin, because the Madhyandinas, as well as the Ka/zvas, speak of him in their texts as different (bhedena enam adhiyate), and in 32 the ^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 passages (I, 1, 16 ; I, 3, 16; II, 1, 31) as a kind of technical term denoting the individual soul in con- tradistinction from the Lord. The 5ankaras indeed main- tain that all those passages refer to an unreal distinction