Reading section 12

"For this the doctrine of those that have knowledge is known and sustained by Vishnu."

The purpose, then, of all revelations is to set out the supreme excellence of Vishnu. With this in view the Lord declared:--

"Two are these persons in the universe, the perishable and the imperishable;

"The perishable is all the elements, the imperishable is the unmodified.

"The other, the most excellent person, called the Supreme Spirit,

"Is the undecaying Lord, who pervading sustains the three worlds.

"Since transcending the perishable, I am more excellent than the imperishable (soul),

"Hence I am celebrated among men and in the Veda as the best of persons (_Purushottama_);

"He who uninfatuated knows me thus the best of persons, he all-knowing worships me in every wise.

"Thus this most mysterious institute is declared, blameless (Arjuna):

"Knowing this a man may be wise, and may have done what he has to do, O Bhárata" (Bhagavad-gítá, xv. 16-20).

So in the Mahá-varáha--

"The primary purport of all the Vedas relates to the supreme spouse of Sri;

"Its purport regarding the excellence of any other deity must be subordinate."

It is reasonable that the primary purport should regard the supreme excellence of Vishnu. For emancipation is the highest end of all men, according to the text of the Bhállaveya Upanishad: While merit, wealth, and enjoyment are transitory, emancipation is eternal; therefore a wise man should strive unceasingly to attain thereto. And emancipation is not won without the grace of Vishnu, according to the text of the Náráyana Upanishad: Through whose grace is the highest state, through whose essence he is liberated from transmigration, while inferior men propitiating the divinities are not emancipated; the supreme object of discernment to those who desire to be liberated from this snare of works. According also to the words of the Vishnu-purána--

"If he be propitiated, what may not here be won? Enough of all wealth and enjoyments. These are scanty enough. On climbing the tree of the supreme essence, without doubt a man attains to the fruit of emancipation."

And it is declared that the grace of Vishnu is won only through the knowledge of his excellence, not through the knowledge of non-duality. Nor is there in this doctrine any confliction with texts declaratory of the identity (of personal and impersonal spirit) such as, That art thou (for this pretended identity) is mere babbling from ignorance of the real purport.

"The word That, when undetermined, designates the eternally unknown,

"The word Thou designates a knowable entity; how can these be one?"

And this text (That art thou) indicates similarity (not identity) like the text, The sun is the sacrificial post. Thus the grand revelation:--

"The ultimate unity of the individual soul is either similarity of cognition,

"Or entrance into the same place, or in relation to the place of the individual;

"Not essential unity, for even when it is emancipated it is different,

"The difference being independence and completeness (in the Supreme Spirit), and smallness and dependence (in the individual spirit)."

Or to propose another explanation of the text, _Átmá tat tvam asi_, That art thou, it may be divided, _átmá tat tvam asi_. He alone is soul as possessing independence and other attributes, and thou art not-that (_atat_) as wanting those attributes; and thus the doctrine of unity is utterly expelled. Thus it has been said:--

"Or the division may be _Atat tvam_, and thus unity will be well got rid of."

According, therefore, to the Tattva-váda-rahasya, the words in the nine examples (in the Chhándogya Upanishad), He like a bird tied with a string, &c., teach unity with the view of giving an example of non-duality. Accordingly the Mahopanishad:--

"Like a bird and the string; like the juices of various trees;

"Like rivers and the sea; like fresh and salt water;

"Like a robber and the robbed; like a man and his energy;

"So are soul and the Lord diverse, for ever different.

"Nevertheless from subtilty (or imperceptibility) of form, the supreme Hari

"Is not seen by the dim-sighted to be other than the individual spirit, though he is its actuator;

"On knowing their diversity a man is emancipated: otherwise he is bound."

And again--

"Brahmá, Siva, and the greatest of the gods decay with the decay of their bodies;

"Greater than these is Hari, undecaying, because his body is for the sustentation of Lakshmí.

"By reason of all his attributes, independence, power, knowledge, pleasure, and the rest,

"All they, all the deities, are in unlimited obedience to him."

And again:--

"Knowing Vishnu, full of all excellences, the soul, exempted from transmigration,

"Rejoices in his presence for ever, enjoying painless bliss.

"Vishnu is the refuge of liberated souls, and their supreme ruler.

"Obedient to him are they for ever; he is the Lord."

That by knowledge of one thing there is knowledge of all things may be evinced from its supremacy and causality, not from the falsity of all things. For knowledge of the false cannot be brought about by knowledge of real existence. As we see the current assurance and expression that by knowing or not knowing its chief men a village is known or not known; and as when the father the cause is known, a man knows the son; (so by knowing the supreme and the cause, the inferior and the effect is known). Otherwise (on the doctrine of the Advaita-vádins that the world is false and illusory) the words _one_ and _lump_ in the text, By one lump of clay, fair sir, all that is made of clay is recognised, would be used to no purpose, for the text must be completed by supplying the words, By reason of clay recognised. For the text, Utterance with the voice, modification, name, clay (or other determinate object),--these alone are real, cannot be assumed to impart the falsity of things made; the reality of these being admitted, for what is meant is, that of which utterance with the voice is a modification, is unmodified, eternal; and a name such as clay, such speech is true. Otherwise it would result that the words _name_ and _alone_ would be otiose. There is no proof anywhere, then, that the world is unreal. Besides (we would ask) is the statement that the world is false itself true or false. If the statement is true, there is a violation of a real non-duality. If the statement is untrue, it follows that the world is true.

Perhaps it may be objected that this dilemma is a kind of fallacious reasoning, like the dilemma: Is transitoriness permanent or transitory? There is a difficulty in either case. As it is said by the author of the Nyáya-nirvána: The proof of the permanence of the transitory, as being both permanent and transitory, is a paralogism. And in the Tárkika-rakshá--

"When a mode cannot be evinced to be either such and such, or not such and such,

"The denial of a subject characterised by such a mode is called Nitya-sama."

With the implied mention of this same technical expression it is stated in the Prabodha-siddhi: Equality of characteristic modes results from significancy. If it be said, This then is a valid rejoinder, we reply, This is a mere scaring of the uninstructed, for the source of fallacy has not been pointed out. This is twofold, general and particular: of these, the former is self-destructive, and the latter is of three kinds, defect of a requisite element, excess of an element not requisite, and residence in that which is not the subjicible subject. Of these (two forms of the fallacy), the general form is not suspected, no self-pervasion being observed in the dilemma in question (viz., Is the statement that the world is unreal itself true or false? &c.) So likewise the particular; for if a water-jar be said to be non-existent, the affirmation of its non-existence is equally applicable to the water-jar as that of its existence.

If you reply: We accept the unreality (or falsity) of the world, not its non-existence; this reply is about as wise as the procedure of the carter who will lose his head rather than pay a hundred pieces of money, but will at once give five score; for falsity and non-existence are synonymous. We dismiss further prolixity.

The meaning of the first aphorism, viz., Then hence the absolute is to be desired to be known, is as follows:--The word _then_ is allowed to purport auspiciousness, and to designate subsequency to the qualification (of the aspirant). The word _hence_ indicates a reason.

Accordingly it is stated in the Gáruda-purána:--

"All the aphorisms begin with the words Then and Hence regularly; what then is the reason of this?

"And what is the sense of those words, O sage? Why are those the most excellent?

"Tell me this, Brahmá, that I may know it truly."

Thus addressed by Nárada, the most excellent Brahmá replied:--

"The word Then is used of subsequency and of competency, and in an auspicious sense,

"And the word Thence is employed to indicate the reason."

It is laid down that we must institute inquiries about the absolute, because emancipation is not attained without the grace of Náráyana, and his grace is not attained without knowledge. The absolute, about which the inquiry is to be instituted, is described in the words (of the second aphorism): From which the genesis, and so forth, of this. The meaning of the sentence is that the absolute is that from which result emanation, sustentation, and retractation; according to the words of the Skanda-purána--

"He is Hari the sole ruler, the spirit from whom are emanation, sustentation, retractation, necessity, knowledge, involution (in illusion), and bondage and liberation;"