Reading section 11

It is much more difficult to indicate the precise teaching of the Upanishads concerning the original relation of the individual soul to the highest Self, although there can be no doubt that it has to be viewed as proceeding from the latter, and somehow forming a part of it. Negatively we are entitled to say that the doctrine, according to which the soul is merely brahma bhrântam or brahma mayopadhikam, is in no way countenanced by the majority of the passages bearing on the question. If the emission of the elements, described in the Chândogya and referred to above, is a real process--of which we saw no reason to doubt--the jîva âtman with which the highest Self enters into the emitted elements is equally real, a true part or emanation of Brahman itself.

After having in this way shortly reviewed the chief elements of Vedântic doctrine according to the Upanishads, we may briefly consider /S/a@nkara's system and mode of interpretation--with whose details we had frequent opportunities of finding fault--as a whole. It has been said before that the task of reducing the teaching of the whole of the Upanishads to a system consistent and free from contradictions is an intrinsically impossible one. But the task once being given, we are quite ready to admit that /S/a@nkara's system is most probably the best which can be devised. While unable to allow that the Upanishads recognise a lower and higher knowledge of Brahman, in fact the distinction of a lower and higher Brahman, we yet acknowledge that the adoption of that distinction furnishes the interpreter with an instrument of extraordinary power for reducing to an orderly whole the heterogeneous material presented by the old theosophic treatises. This becomes very manifest as soon as we compare /S/a@nkara's system with that of Râmânuja. The latter recognises only one Brahman which is, as we should say, a personal God, and he therefore lays stress on all those passages of the Upanishads which ascribe to Brahman the attributes of a personal God, such as omniscience and omnipotence. Those passages, on the other hand, whose decided tendency it is to represent Brahman as transcending all qualities, as one undifferenced mass of impersonal intelligence, Râmânuja is unable to accept frankly and fairly, and has to misinterpret them more or less to make them fall in with his system. The same remark holds good with regard to those texts which represent the individual soul as finally identifying itself with Brahman; Râmânuja cannot allow a complete identification but merely an assimilation carried as far as possible. /S/a@nkara, on the other hand, by skilfully ringing the changes on a higher and a lower doctrine, somehow manages to find room for whatever the Upanishads have to say. Where the text speaks of Brahman as transcending all attributes, the highest doctrine is set forth. Where Brahman is called the All-knowing ruler of the world, the author means to propound the lower knowledge of the Lord only. And where the legends about the primary being and its way of creating the world become somewhat crude and gross, Hira/n/yagarbha and Virâj are summoned forth and charged with the responsibility. Of Virâj Mr. Gough remarks (p. 55) that in him a place is provided by the poets of the Upanishads for the purusha of the ancient /ri/shis, the divine being out of whom the visible and tangible world proceeded. This is quite true if only we substitute for the 'poets of the Upanishads' the framers of the orthodox Vedânta system--for the Upanishads give no indication whatever that by their purusha they understand not the simple old purusha but the Virâj occupying a definite position in a highly elaborate system;--but the mere phrase, 'providing a place' intimates with sufficient clearness the nature of the work in which systematisers of the Vedântic doctrine are engaged.

/S/a@nkara's method thus enables him in a certain way to do justice to different stages of historical development, to recognise clearly existing differences which other systematisers are intent on obliterating. And there has yet to be made a further and even more important admission in favour of his system. It is not only more pliable, more capable of amalgamating heterogeneous material than other systems, but its fundamental doctrines are manifestly in greater harmony with the essential teaching of the Upanishads than those of other Vedântic systems. Above we were unable to allow that the distinction made by /S/a@nkara between Brahman and Î/s/vara is known to the Upanishads; but we must now admit that if, for the purpose of determining the nature of the highest being, a choice has to be made between those texts which represent Brahman as nirgu/n/a, and those which ascribe to it personal attributes, /S/a@nkara is right in giving preference to texts of the former kind. The Brahman of the old Upanishads, from which the souls spring to enjoy individual consciousness in their waking state, and into which they sink back temporarily in the state of deep dreamless sleep and permanently in death, is certainly not represented adequately by the strictly personal Î/s/vara of Râmânuja, who rules the world in wisdom and mercy. The older Upanishads, at any rate, lay very little stress upon personal attributes of their highest being, and hence /S/a@nkara is right in so far as he assigns to his hypostatised personal Î/s/vara[29] a lower place than to his absolute Brahman. That he also faithfully represents the prevailing spirit of the Upanishads in his theory of the ultimate fate of the soul, we have already remarked above. And although the Mâyâ doctrine cannot, in my opinion, be said to form part of the teaching of the Upanishads, it cannot yet be asserted to contradict it openly, because the very point which it is meant to elucidate, viz. the mode in which the physical universe and the multiplicity of individual souls originate, is left by the Upanishads very much in the dark. The later growth of the Mâyâ doctrine on the basis of the Upanishads is therefore quite intelligible, and I fully agree with Mr. Gough when he says regarding it that there has been no addition to the system from without but only a development from within, no graft but only growth. The lines of thought which finally led to the elaboration of the full-blown Mâyâ theory may be traced with considerable certainty. In the first place, deepening speculation on Brahman tended to the notion of advaita being taken in a more and more strict sense, as implying not only the exclusion of any second principle external to Brahman, but also the absence of any elements of duality or plurality in the nature of the one universal being itself; a tendency agreeing with the spirit of a certain set of texts from the Upanishads. And as the fact of the appearance of a manifold world cannot be denied, the only way open to thoroughly consistent speculation was to deny at any rate its reality, and to call it a mere illusion due to an unreal principle, with which Brahman is indeed associated, but which is unable to break the unity of Brahman's nature just on account of its own unreality. And, in the second place, a more thorough following out of the conception that the union with Brahman is to be reached through true knowledge only, not unnaturally led to the conclusion that what separates us in our

unenlightened state from Brahman is such as to allow itself to be completely sublated by an act of knowledge; is, in other words, nothing else but an erroneous notion, an illusion.--A further circumstance which may not impossibly have co-operated to further the development of the theory of the world's unreality will be referred to later on.[30]

We have above been obliged to leave it an open question what kind of Vedânta is represented by the Vedânta-sûtras, although reason was shown for the supposition that in some important points their teaching is more closely related to the system of Râmânuja than to that of /S/a@nkara. If so, the philosophy of /S/a@nkara would on the whole stand nearer to the teaching of the Upanishads than the Sûtras of Bâdarâya/n/a. This would indeed be a somewhat unexpected conclusion--for, judging a priori, we should be more inclined to assume a direct propagation of the true doctrine of the Upanishads through Bâdarâya/n/a to /S/a@nkara--but a priori considerations have of course no weight against positive evidence to the contrary. There are, moreover, other facts in the history of Indian philosophy and theology which help us better to appreciate the possibility of Bâdarâya/n/a's Sûtras already setting forth a doctrine that lays greater stress on the personal character of the highest being than is in agreement with the prevailing tendency of the Upanishads. That the pure doctrine of those ancient Brahminical treatises underwent at a rather early period amalgamations with beliefs which most probably had sprung up in altogether different--priestly or non-priestly--communities is a well-known circumstance; it suffices for our purposes to refer to the most eminent of the early literary monuments in which an amalgamation of the kind mentioned is observable, viz. the Bhagavadgîtâ. The doctrine of the Bhagavadgîtâ represents a fusion of the Brahman theory of the Upanishads with the belief in a personal highest being--K/ri/sh/n/a or Vish/n/u--which in many respects approximates very closely to the system of the Bhâgavatas; the attempts of a certain set of Indian commentators to explain it as setting forth pure Vedânta, i.e. the pure doctrine of the Upanishads, may simply be set aside. But this same Bhagavadgîtâ is quoted in Bâdarâya/n/a's Sûtras (at least according to the unanimous explanations of the most eminent scholiasts of different schools) as inferior to /S/ruti only in authority. The Sûtras, moreover, refer in different places to certain Vedântic portions of the Mahâbhârata, especially the twelfth book, several of which represent forms of Vedânta distinctly differing from /S/a@nkara's teaching, and closely related to the system of the Bhâgavatas.

Facts of this nature--from entering into the details of which we are prevented by want of space--tend to mitigate the primâ facie strangeness of the assumption that the Vedânta-sûtras, which occupy an intermediate position between the Upanishads and /S/a@nkara, should yet diverge in their teaching from both. The Vedânta of Gau/d/apâda and /S/a@nkara would in that case mark a strictly orthodox reaction against all combinations of non-Vedic elements of belief and doctrine with the teaching of the Upanishads. But although this form of doctrine has ever since /S/a@nkara's time been the one most generally accepted by Brahminic students of philosophy, it has never had any wide-reaching influence on the masses of India. It is too little in sympathy with the wants of the human heart, which, after all, are not so very different in India from what they are elsewhere. Comparatively few, even in India, are those who rejoice in the idea of a universal non-personal essence in which their own individuality is to be merged and lost for ever, who think it sweet 'to be wrecked on the ocean of the Infinite.'[31] The only forms of Vedântic philosophy which are--and can at any time have been--really popular, are those in which the Brahman of the Upanishads has somehow transformed itself into a being, between which and the devotee there can exist a personal relation, love and faith on the part of man, justice tempered by mercy on the part of the divinity. The only religious books of widespread influence are such as the Râmâyan of Tulsidâs, which lay no stress on the distinction between an absolute Brahman inaccessible to all human wants and sympathies, and a shadowy Lord whose very conception depends on the illusory principle of Mâyâ, but love to dwell on the delights of devotion to one all-wise and merciful ruler, who is able and willing to lend a gracious ear to the supplication of the worshipper.

* * * * *

The present translation of the Vedânta-sûtras does not aim at rendering that sense which their author may have aimed at conveying, but strictly follows /S/a@nkara's interpretation. The question as to how far the latter agrees with the views held by Bâdarâya/n/a has been discussed above, with the result that for the present it must, on the whole, be left an open one. In any case it would not be feasible to combine a translation of /S/a@nkara's commentary with an independent version of the Sûtras which it explains. Similar considerations have determined the method followed in rendering the passages of the Upanishads referred to in the Sûtras and discussed at length by /S/a@nkara. There also the views of the commentator have to be followed closely; otherwise much of the comment would appear devoid of meaning. Hence, while of course following on the whole the critical translation published by Professor Max Müller in the earlier volumes of this Series, I had, in a not inconsiderable number of cases, to modify it so as to render intelligible /S/a@nkara's explanations and reasonings. I hope to find space in the introduction to the second volume of this translation for making some general remarks on the method to be followed in translating the Upanishads.

I regret that want of space has prevented me from extracting fuller notes from later scholiasts. The notes given are based, most of them, on the /t/îkâs composed by Ânandagiri and Govindânanda (the former of which is unpublished as yet, so far as I know), and on the Bhâmatî.

My best thanks are due to Pa/nd/its Râma Mi/s/ra /S/âstrin and Ga@ngâdhara /S/âstrin of the Benares Sanskrit College, whom I have consulted on several difficult passages. Greater still are my obligations to Pa/nd/it Ke/s/ava /S/âstrin, of the same institution, who most kindly undertook to read a proof of the whole of the present volume, and whose advice has enabled me to render my version of more than one passage more definite or correct.

Notes:

[Footnote 19: Nanu vidusho z pi setikartavyatâkopâsananirv/ri/ttaye v/ri/shyannâdiphalânîsh/t/âny eva katha/m/ teshâ/m/ virodhâd vinâ/s/a u/k/yate. Tatrâha pâte tv iti. /S/arîrapâte tu teshâ/m/ vinâ/s/a/h/ /s/arîrapâtâd ûrdhv/m/ tu vidyânugu/n/ad/ri/sh/t/aphalâni suk/ri/tâni na/s/yantîty artha/h/.]

[Footnote 20: Upalabhyate hi devayânena panthâ ga/kkh/ato vidushas tam pratibrûuyât satyam brûyâd iti /k/andramasâ sa/m/vâdava/k/anena /s/arîrasadbhâva/h/, ata/h/ sûkshma/s/arîram anuvartate.]

[Footnote 21: When the jîva has passed out of the body and ascends to the world of Brahman, it remains enveloped by the subtle body until it reaches the river Vijarâ. There it divests itself of the subtle body, and the latter is merged in Brahman.].

[Footnote 22: Kim aya/m/ para/m/, yotir upasampanna/h/ saivabandhavinirmukta/h/ pratyagatma svatmana/m/ paramâtmana/h/ p/rit/hagbhutam anubhavati uta tatprahâratayâ tadavibhaktam iti visnye so, /s/nate sarvân kamân saha brahma/n/â vipas/k/itâ pasya/h/ pasyate rukmavar/n/a/m/ kartaram ìsa/m/ purusha/m/ brahmayoni/m/ tadâ vidvin pu/n/yapape vidhuya nirañgana/h/ parama/m/ sâmyam upaiti ida/m/ jñanam upasritya mama sâdharinyam âgata/h/ sarve, punopajâyante pralayena vyathanti /k/etyadysruysm/nt/ibhyo muktasta pare/n/a sâhityasâmyasádharmyâvagamât p/ri/thagbhutam anubhavatîu prâpte u/k/yate. Avibhâgeneti. Parasmâd brahmana/h/ svatmanam avibhâgenânubhavati mukta/h/. Kuta/h/. D/ri/shtatvât. Para/m/ brahmopasampadya niv/ri/ttavidyânrodhanasya yathâtathyena svâtamano d/ri/sh/ta/tvât. Svatmana/h/ ssvarûpa/m/ hi tat tvam asy ayam âtmâ brahma aitadâtmyam ida/m/ sarva/m/ sarva/m/ khalv ida/m/ brahnetyâdisâmânâdhikara/n/yanirdesai/h/ ya âtmani tishtan atmano ntaro yam âtmâ na veda yastatmâ sarîra/m/ ya âtmânam antaro yamayati âtmântaryamy am/ri/tah anta/h/ pravishta/h/ sâstâ anânâm ityâdibhis /k/a paramatmâtmaka/m/ ta/kk/harîtatayâ tatprakâtabhûtam iti pratipâditam avashitei iti kasak/ri/stnety atrâto vibhagenaha/m/ brahmâsmîty cvanubhavati.]

[Footnote 23: /S/a@nkara's favourite illustrative instance of the magician producing illusive sights is--significantly enough--not known to the Sûtras.]

[Footnote 24: Cp. Gough's Philosophy of the Upanishads, pp. 240 ff.]

[Footnote 25: It is well known that, with the exception of the /S/vitâsvatara and Maitrâyanîya, none of the chief Upanishads exhibits the word 'mâyâ.' The term indeed occurs in one place in the B/ri/hadâra/n/yaka; but that passage is a quotation from the /Ri/k Sa/m/bitâ in which mâyâ means 'creative power.' Cp. P. Régnaud, La Mâyâ, in the Revue de l'Histoire des Religions, tome xii, No. 3, 1885.]

[Footnote 26: As is demonstrated very satisfactorily by Râmânuja.]

[Footnote 27: Gough, Philosophy of the Upanishads pp. 213 ff.]

[Footnote 28: I cannot discuss in this place the Mâyâ passages of the Svetâsvatara and the Maitrâyanîya Upanishads. Reasons which want of space prevents me from setting forth in detail induce me to believe that neither of those two treatises deserves to be considered by us when wishing to ascertain the true immixed doctrine of the Upanishads.]

[Footnote 29: The Î/s/vara who allots to the individual souls their new forms of embodiment in strict accordance with their merit or demerit cannot be called anything else but a personal God. That this personal conscious being is at the same time identified with the totality of the individual souls in the unconscious state of deep dreamless sleep, is one of those extraordinary contradictions which thorough-going systematisers of Vedântic doctrine are apparently unable to avoid altogether.]

[Footnote 30: That section of the introduction in which the point referred to in the text is touched upon will I hope form part of the second volume of the translation. The same remark applies to a point concerning which further information had been promised above on page v.]

[Footnote 31:

Così tra questa Immensità s'annega il pensier mio, E il naufrago m' e dolce in qnesto mare. LEOPARDI. ]

VEDÂNTA-SÛTRAS

WITH

/S/A@NKARA BHÂSHYA.

/S/A@NKARA'S INTRODUCTION

FIRST ADHYÂYA.

FIRST PÂDA.

REVERENCE TO THE AUGUST VÂSUDEVA!

It is a matter not requiring any proof that the object and the subject[32] whose respective spheres are the notion of the 'Thou' (the Non-Ego[33]) and the 'Ego,' and which are opposed to each other as much as darkness and light are, cannot be identified. All the less can their respective attributes be identified. Hence it follows that it is wrong to superimpose[34] upon the subject--whose Self is intelligence, and which has for its sphere the notion of the Ego--the object whose sphere is the notion of the Non-Ego, and the attributes of the object, and _vice versâ_ to superimpose the subject and the attributes of the subject on the object. In spite of this it is on the part of man a natural[35] procedure--which which has its cause in wrong knowledge--not to distinguish the two entities (object and subject) and their respective attributes, although they are absolutely distinct, but to superimpose upon each the characteristic nature and the attributes of the other, and thus, coupling the Real and the Unreal[36], to make use of expressions such as 'That am I,' 'That is mine.[37]'--But what have we to understand by the term 'superimposition?'--The apparent presentation, in the form of remembrance, to consciousness of something previously observed, in some other thing.[38]

Some indeed define the term 'superimposition' as the superimposition of the attributes of one thing on another thing.[39] Others, again, define superimposition as the error founded on the non-apprehension of the difference of that which is superimposed from that on which it is superimposed.[40] Others[41], again, define it as the fictitious assumption of attributes contrary to the nature of that thing on which something else is superimposed. But all these definitions agree in so far as they represent superimposition as the apparent presentation of the attributes of one thing in another thing. And therewith agrees also the popular view which is exemplified by expressions such as the following: 'Mother-of-pearl appears like silver,' 'The moon although one only appears as if she were double.' But how is it possible that on the interior Self which itself is not an object there should be superimposed objects and their attributes? For every one superimposes an object only on such other objects as are placed before him (i.e. in contact with his sense-organs), and you have said before that the interior Self which is entirely disconnected from the idea of the Thou (the Non-Ego) is never an object. It is not, we reply, non-object in the absolute sense. For it is the object of the notion of the Ego[42], and the interior Self is well known to exist on account of its immediate (intuitive) presentation.[43] Nor is it an exceptionless rule that objects can be superimposed only on such other objects as are before us, i.e. in contact with our sense-organs; for non-discerning men superimpose on the ether, which is not the object of sensuous perception, dark-blue colour.

Hence it follows that the assumption of the Non-Self being superimposed on the interior Self is not unreasonable.

This superimposition thus defined, learned men consider to be Nescience (avidyâ), and the ascertainment of the true nature of that which is (the Self) by means of the discrimination of that (which is superimposed on the Self), they call knowledge (vidyâ). There being such knowledge (neither the Self nor the Non-Self) are affected in the least by any blemish or (good) quality produced by their mutual superimposition[44]. The mutual superimposition of the Self and the Non-Self, which is termed Nescience, is the presupposition on which there base all the practical distinctions--those made in ordinary life as well as those laid down by the Veda--between means of knowledge, objects of knowledge (and knowing persons), and all scriptural texts, whether they are concerned with injunctions and prohibitions (of meritorious and non-meritorious actions), or with final release[45].--But how can the means of right knowledge such as perception, inference, &c., and scriptural texts have for their object that which is dependent on Nescience[46]?--Because, we reply, the means of right knowledge cannot operate unless there be a knowing personality, and because the existence of the latter depends on the erroneous notion that the body, the senses, and so on, are identical with, or belong to, the Self of the knowing person. For without the employment of the senses, perception and the other means of right knowledge cannot operate. And without a basis (i.e. the body[47]) the senses cannot act. Nor does anybody act by means of a body on which the nature of the Self is not superimposed[48]. Nor can, in the absence of all that[49], the Self which, in its own nature is free from all contact, become a knowing agent. And if there is no knowing agent, the means of right knowledge cannot operate (as said above). Hence perception and the other means of right knowledge, and the Vedic texts have for their object that which is dependent on Nescience. (That human cognitional activity has for its presupposition the superimposition described above), follows also from the non-difference in that respect of men from animals. Animals, when sounds or other sensible qualities affect their sense of hearing or other senses, recede or advance according as the idea derived from the sensation is a comforting or disquieting one. A cow, for instance, when she sees a man approaching with a raised stick in his hand, thinks that he wants to beat her, and therefore moves away; while she walks up to a man who advances with some fresh grass in his hand. Thus men also--who possess a higher intelligence--run away when they see strong fierce-looking fellows drawing near with shouts and brandishing swords; while they confidently approach persons of contrary appearance and behaviour. We thus see that men and animals follow the same course of procedure with reference to the means and objects of knowledge. Now it is well known that the procedure of animals bases on the non-distinction (of Self and Non-Self); we therefore conclude that, as they present the same appearances, men also--although distinguished by superior intelligence--proceed with regard to perception and so on, in the same way as animals do; as long, that is to say, as the mutual superimposition of Self and Non-Self lasts. With reference again to that kind of activity which is founded on the Veda (sacrifices and the like), it is true indeed that the reflecting man who is qualified to enter on it, does so not without knowing that the