supplements to those passages which enjoin actions; noti¬ fying the agents, divinities, and results connected with those actions. Or else, if this be not admitted, on the ground of its involving the introduction of a subject-matter foreign to the Vedanta-texts (viz. the subject-matter of the Karmak&zzz/a of the Veda), we must admit (the second of the two alternatives proposed above, viz.) that the Vedanta-texts refer to devout meditation (upasana) and similar actions which are mentioned in those very (Vedanta) texts. The result of all of which is that Scripture is not the source of Brahman.
To this argumentation the Sutrakara replies as follows: 4. But that (Brahman is to be known from Scrip¬ ture), because it is connected (with the Vedanta-texts) as their purport.
The word 4 but 5 is meant to rebut the purva-paksha (the prim a facie view as urged above). That all-knowing,all-(powerful Brahman, which is the cause of the origin, subjsistence, and dissolution of the world, is known from the Vedanta-part of Scripture. How? Because in all the Vedanta-texts the sentences construe in so far as they have for their purport, as they intimate that matter (viz. Brahman). Compare, for instance, c Being only this was in the beginning, one, without a second’ ( Kh. Up. VI, 2, 1); 4 In the beginning all this was Self, one only 5 (Ait. Ar. II, 4, 1, 1); e This is the Brahman without cause and without effect, without anything inside or outside; this Self is Brahman perceiving everything’ {Bri, Up. II, 5, 19); 4 That immortal Brahman is before 5 (Mu. Up. II, 2, 11); and similar passages. If the words contained in these passages have once been determined to refer to Brahman, and their purport is understood thereby, it would be improper to assume them to have a different sense; for that would involve the fault of abandoning the direct statements of the text in favour of mere assumptions. Nor can we con¬ clude the purport of these passages to be the intimation of the nature of agents, divinities, &c. (connected with acts of religious duty); for there are certain scriptural passages which preclude all actions, actors, and fruits, as, for instance, Bri. Up. II, 4, 13, ‘ Then by what should he see whom? 5 (which passage intimates that there is neither an agent, nor an object of action, nor an instrument.) Nor again can Brahman, though it is of the nature of an accomplished thing, be the object of perception and the other means of knowledge; for the fact of everything having its Self in Brahman cannot be grasped without the aid of the scriptural passage ‘That art thou 5 ( Kh. Up.VI, 8, 7). Nor can it rightly be objected that instruction is purportless if not connected with something either to be striven after or shunned; for from the mere comprehension of Brahman’s Self, which is not something either to be avoided or endeavoured after, there results cessation of all pain, and thereby the attainment of man’s highest aim. That passages notifying certain divinities, and so on, stand in subordinate relation to acts of devout meditation mentioned in the same chapters may readily be admitted. But it is impossible that Brahman should stand in an analogous relation to injunctions of devout meditation, for if the know¬ ledge of absolute unity has once arisen there exists no longer anything to be desired or avoided, and thereby the conception of duality, according to which we distinguish actions, agents, and the like, is destroyed. If the conception of duality is once uprooted by the conception of absolute unity, it cannot arise again, and so no longer be the cause of Brahman being looked upon as the complementary object of injunctions of devotion. Other parts of the Veda may have no authority except in so far as they are con¬ nected with injunctions; still it is impossible to impugn on that ground the authoritativeness of passages conveying the knowledge of the Self; for such passages have their own result.
Nor, finally, can the authoritativeness of the Veda be proved by inferential reasoning so that it would be dependent on instances observed elsewhere. From all which it follows that the Veda possesses authority as a means of right knowledge of Brahman.
Here others raise the following objection:—Although the Veda is the means of gaining a right knowledge of Brah¬ man, yet it intimates Brahman only as the object of certain injunctions, just as the information which the Veda gives about the sacrificial post, the ahavaniya-fire and other objects not known from the practice of common life is merely supplementary to certain injunctions 1. Why so?
1 So, for instance, the passage ‘ he carves the sacrificial post and Because the Veda has the purport of either instigating to action or restraining from it. For men fully acquainted with the object of the Veda have made the following declaration, c The purpose of the Veda is seen to be the injunction of actions’ (Bhashya on Gaimini Sutra I, i, 1); ‘ Injunction means passages impelling to action ’ (Bh. on Gaim. Sfi. I, 1,2); ‘ Of this (viz. active religious duty) the knowledge comes from injunction * (part of Gaim. S&. 1,1,5); c The (words) denoting those (things) are to be connected with (the injunctive verb of the vidhi-passage) whose pur¬ port is action ’ (Gaim. Su. 1,1, 25); c As action is the purport of the Veda, whatever does not refer to action is purport¬ less ’ (Gaim. Sti. I, 2, 1). Therefore the Veda has a purport in so far only as it rouses the activity of man with regard to some actions and restrains it with regard to others; other passages (i. e. all those passages which are not directly injunctive) have a purport only in so far as they supplement injunctions and prohibitions. Hence the Vedinta-texts also as likewise belonging to the Veda can have a mean¬ ing in the same way only. And if their aim is injunc¬ tion, then just as the agnihotra-oblation and other rites are enjoined as means for him who is desirous of the heavenly world, so the knowledge of Brahman is enjoined as a means for him who is desirous of immortality.—But— somebody might object—it has been declared that there is a difference in the character of the objects enquired into, the object of enquiry in the karma-ka^a (that part of the Veda which treats of active religious duty) being some¬ thing to be accomplished, viz. duty, while here the object is the already existent absolutely accomplished Brahman.
From this it follows that the fruit of the knowledge of Brahman must be of a different nature from the fruit of the knowledge of duty which depends on the performance of actions 1.—We reply that it must not be such because the makes it eight-cornered/ has a purpose only as being supplementary to the injunction ‘ he ties the victim to the sacrificial post/ 1 If the fruits of the two jastras were not of a different nature, there would be no reason for the distinction of two jastras; if they Vedanta-texts give information about Brahman only in so far as it is connected with injunctions of actions. We meet with injunctions of the following kind, ‘ Verily the Self is to be seen’ ( Bri. Up. II, 4, 5); ‘The Self which is free from sin that it is which we must search out, that it is which we must try to understand ’ ( Kh. Up. VIII, 7,1); * Let a man worship him as Self’ (Bri. Up. I, 4, 7); ‘ Let a man worship the Self only as his true state 5 (Bri. Up. 1, 4,15); ‘ He who knows Brahman becomes Brahman, (Mu. Up. Ill, 2, 9). These injunctions rouse in us the desire to know what that Brahman is. It, therefore, is the task of the Ved&nta-texts to set forth Brahman’s nature, and they perform that task by teaching us that Brahman is eternal, all-knowing, absolutely self-sufficient, ever pure, intelli¬ gent and free, pure knowledge, absolute bliss. From the devout meditation on this Brahman there results as its fruit, final release, which, although not to be discerned in the ordinary way, is discerned by means of the ^astra. If, on the other hand, the Vedanta-texts were considered to have no reference to injunctions of actions, but to contain statements about mere (accomplished) things, just as if one were saying ‘ the earth comprises seven dvipas,’ ‘that king is marching on,’ they would be pur¬ portless, because then they could not possibly be connected with something to be shunned or endeavoured after.—Per¬ haps it will here be objected that sometimes a mere state¬ ment about existent things has a purpose, as, for instance, the affirmation, ‘This is a rope, not a snake,’ serves the purpose of removing the fear engendered by an erroneous opinion, and that so likewise the Veddnta-passages making statements about the non-transmigrating Self, have a pur¬ port of their own (without reference to any action), viz. in so far as they remove the erroneous opinion of the Self being liable to transmigration.—We reply that this might are of a different nature, it cannot be said that the knowledge of Brahman is enjoined for the purpose of final release, in the same way as sacrifices are enjoined for the purpose of obtaining the heavenly world and the like.
vedanta-s6tras.
be so if just as the mere hearing of the true nature of the rope dispels the fear caused by the imagined snake, so the mere hearing of the true nature of Brahman would dispel the erroneous notion of one’s being subject to transmigration. But this is not the case; for we observe that even men to whom the true nature of Brahman has been stated continue to be affected by pleasure, pain, and the other qualities attaching to the transmigratory condition. Moreover, we see from the passage, Bri. Up. II, 4, 5 > ‘The Self is to be heard, to be considered, to be reflected upon,’ that con¬ sideration and reflection have to follow the mere hearing. From all this it results that the i'astra can be admitted as a means of knowing Brahman in so far only as the latter is connected with injunctions.
To all this, we, the Vedantins, make the following reply:—The preceding reasoning is not valid, on account of the different nature of the fruits of actions on the one side, and of the knowledge of Brahman on the other side. The enquiry into those actions, whether of body, speech, or mind, which are known from Sruti and Smrzti, and are comprised under the name c religious duty’ (dharma), is carried on in the Gaimini Sutra, which begins with the words ‘ then therefore the enquiry into duty; ’ the opposite of duty also (adharma), such as doing harm, &c., which is defined in the prohibitory injunctions, forms an object of enquiry to the end that it may be avoided. The fruits of duty, which is good, and its opposite, which is evil, both of which are defined by original Vedic statements, are generally known to be sensible pleasure and pain, which make them¬ selves felt to body, speech, and mind only, are produced by the contact of the organs of sense with the objects, and affect all animate beings from Brahman down to a tuft of grass. Scripture, agreeing with observation, states that there are differences in the degree of pleasure of all em¬ bodied creatures from men upward to Brahman. From those differences it is inferred that there are differences in the degrees of the merit acquired by actions in accord¬ ance with religious duty; therefrom again are inferred differences in degree between those qualified to perform acts of religious duty. Those latter differences are more¬ over known to be affected by the desire of certain results (which entitles the man so desirous to perform certain religious acts), worldly possessions, and the like. It is further known from Scripture that those only who perform sacrifices proceed, in consequence of the pre-eminence of their knowledge and meditation, on the northern path (of the sun; Kh. Up. V, 10, 1), while mere minor offerings, works of public utility and alms, only lead through smoke and the other stages to the southern path. And that there also (viz. in the moon which is finally reached by those who have passed along the southern path) there are degrees of pleasure and the means of pleasure is understood from the passage 4 Having dwelt there till their works are con¬ sumed.’ Analogously it is understood that the different degrees of pleasure which are enjoyed by the embodied creatures, from man downward to the inmates of hell and to immovable things, are the mere effects of religious merit as defined in Vedic injunctions. On the other hand, from the different degrees of pain endured by higher and lower embodied creatures, there is inferred difference of degree in its cause, viz. religious demerit as defined in the pro¬ hibitory injunctions, and in its agents. This difference in the degree of pain and pleasure, which has for its antecedent embodied existence, and for its cause the difference of de¬ gree of merit and demerit of animated beings, liable to faults such as ignorance and the like, is well known—from vSruti, Smrzti, and reasoning—to be non-eternal, of a fleeting, changing nature (sa^sara). The following text, for instance, 4 As long as he is in the body he cannot get free from pleasure and pain ’ {Kh. Up. VIII, 12, 1), refers to the sa//zsara-state as described above. From the following passage, on the other hand, 4 When he is free from the body then neither pleasure nor pain touches him,’ which denies the touch of pain or pleasure, we learn that the unembodied state called ‘final release’ (moksha) is declared not to be the effect of religious merit as defined by Vedic injunctions. For if it were the effect of merit it would not be denied that it is subject to pain and pleasure. Should it be said that the very circumstance of its being an unembodied state is the effect of merit, we reply that that cannot be, since Scripture declares that state to be naturally and originally an unembodied one. ‘The wise who knows the Self as bodiless within the bodies, as unchanging among changing things, as great and omnipresent does never grieve’ (Ka.Up. II, 22); ‘He is without breath, without mind, pure’(Mu. Up, II, 1, 2); ‘That person is not attached to anything’ (B ri. Up. IV, 3, 15) 1. All which passages establish the fact that so-called release differs from all the fruits of action, and is an eternally and essentially disembodied state. Among eternal things, some indeed may be ‘eternal, al¬ though changing’ (pari/zaminitya), viz. those, the idea of whose identity is not destroyed, although they may undergo changes; such, for instance, are earth and the other ele¬ ments in the opinion of those who maintain the eternity of the world, or the three guzzas in the opinion of the Sankhyas. But this (moksha) is eternal in the true sense, i. e. eternal without undergoing any changes (ku^asthanitya), omnipresent as ether, free from all modifications, absolutely self-sufficient, not composed of parts, of selfluminous nature. That bodiless entity in fact, to which merit and demerit with their consequences and threefold time do not apply, is called release; a definition agreeing with scriptural passages, such as the following: ‘ Different from merit and demerit, different from effect and cause, different from past and future’ (Ka. Up. I, 2, 14). It 2 (i. e. moksha) is, therefore, the same as Brahman in the enquiry into which we are at present engaged. If Brahman were represented as supplementary to certain actions, and re- 1 The first passage shows that the Self is not joined to the gross body; the second that it is not joined to the subtle body; the third that is independent of either.
2 Ananda Giri omits ‘ 2X2J1! His comment is: przthagg-igraisavishayatva^ £a dharmadyasprzsh/atvazzz brahma/zo yuktam ityaha I tad iti 1 ata^ jabdapa/^e dharmadyasparre karmaphalavailakshazzyazzz hetfikrz'tam.—The above translation follows Govindananda's first explanation. Tat kaivalyam brahmaiva karmaphalavilakshazzatvad ity artha^.
lease were assumed to be the effect of those actions, it would be non-eternal, and would have to be considered merely as something holding a pre-eminent position among the described non-eternal fruits of actions with their various degrees. But that release is something eternal is acknow¬ ledged by whoever admits it at all, and the teaching con¬ cerning Brahman can therefore not be merely supplemen¬ tary to actions.
There are, moreover, a number of scriptural passages which declare release to follow immediately on the cognition of Brahman, and which thus preclude the possibility of an effect intervening between the two; for instance, ‘ He who knows Brahman becomes Brahman 5 (Mu. Up. Ill, 2,9); ‘All his works perish when He has been beheld, who is the higher and the lower 5 (Mu. Up. II, 2, 8); ‘ He who knows the bliss of Brahman fears nothing 5 (Taitt. Up. II, 9); ‘ O Ganaka, you have indeed reached fearlessness 5 (B ri. Up. IV, 2,4); ‘ That Brahman knew its Self only, saying, I am Brahman. From it all this sprang 5 (B ri. Up. I, 4, 10); ‘What sorrow, what trouble can there be to him who beholds that unity? 5 ( Is. Up.
7.) We must likewise quote the passage, B ri. Up. I, 4, 10, (‘ Seeing this the Rishi Vamadeva understood: I was Manu, I was the sun, 5 ) in order to exclude the idea of any action taking place between one’s seeing Brahman and becoming one with the universal Self; for that passage is analogous to the following one, ‘standing he sings, 5 from which we understand that no action due to the same agent inter¬ venes between the standing and the singing. Other scrip¬ tural passages show that the removal of the obstacles which lie in the way of release is the only fruit of the knowledge of Brahman; so, for instance, ‘ You indeed are our father, you who carry us from our ignorance to the other shore 5 (Pr. Up. VI, 8); ‘ I have heard from men like you that he who knows the Self overcomes grief. I am in grief. Do, Sir, help me over this grief of mine 5 (. Kh. Up. VII, 1,3); ‘To him after his faults had been rubbed out, the vener¬ able Sanatkumara showed the other side of darkness 5 [Kh, Up. VII, 26, 2). The same is the purport of the Sutra, sup¬ ported by arguments, of (Gautama) AHrya, ‘ Final release results from the successive removal of wrong knowledge, faults, activity, birth, pain, the removal of each later mem¬ ber of the series depending on the removal of the preceding member’ (Nyay. Su. I, i, 2); and wrong knowledge itself is removed by the knowledge of one’s Self being one with the Self of Brahman.
Nor is this knowledge of the Self being one with Brahman a mere (fanciful) combination \ as is made use of, for instance, in the following passage, ‘ For the mind is endless, and the VLvedevas are endless, and he thereby gains the endless world ’ (B ri. Up. Ill, 1, g ) 1 2; nor is it an (in reality unfounded) ascription (superimposition) 3, as in the passages, ‘Let him meditate on mind as Brahman,’ and ‘ Aditya is Brahman, this is the doctrine’ (KA. Up. Ill, 18, 1; 19, 1), where the contemplation as Brahman is superimposed on the mind, Aditya and so on; nor, again, is it (a figurative conception of identity) founded on the connection (of the things viewed as identical) with some special activity, as in the passage, ‘Air is indeed the absorber; breath is indeed the absorber 4 ’ ( Kh. Up. IV, 3, 1; 3); nor is it a mere (ceremonial) purifi¬ cation of (the Self constituting a subordinate member) of an action (viz. the action of seeing, &c., Brahman), in the same way as, for instance, the act of looking at the sacri- 1 Sampat. Sampan namalpe vastuny alambane samanyena kena&n mahato vastuna^ sampadanam. Ananda Giri.
2 In which passage the mind, which may be called endless on account of the infinite number of modifications it undergoes, is identified with the Vhvedevas, which thereby constitute the chief object of the meditation; the fruit of the meditation being immor¬ tality. The identity of the Self with Brahman, on the other hand, is real, not only meditatively imagined, on account of the attribute of intelligence being common to both.
8 Adhyasa^ jastrato^tasmi^s taddhi^. Sampadi sampadyamanasya pradhanyenanudhyanam, adhyase tu alambanasyeti vhesha^. Ananda Giri.
4 Air and breath each absorb certain things, and are, therefore, designated by the same term ‘ absorber/ Seyaff* sa^vargadrfsh/ir vayau pra«e ^a daj&ragata/tf ^agad darrayati yatha ^ivatmani b rimhawakriyaya brahmadr/sh/ir amrztatvaya phalaya kalpataiti. Bhamati.
ficial butter 1. For if the knowledge of the identity of the Self and Brahman were understood in the way of combina¬ tion and the like, violence would be done thereby to the connection of the words whose object, in certain passages, it clearly is to intimate the fact of Brahman and the Self being really identical; so, for instance, in the following passages, * That art thou 5 ( Kh. Up. VI, 8, 7); ‘I am Brahman 3 (B ri. Up.
I, 4,10); ‘ This Self is Brahman 5 (B ri. Up. II, 5, 19). And other texts which declare that the fruit of the cognition of Brahman is the cessation of Ignorance would be contradicted thereby; so, for instance, £ The fetter of the heart is broken, all doubts are solved’(Mu. Up. II,2,8). Nor, finally, would it be possible, in that case, satisfactorily to explain the passages which speak of the individual Self becoming Brahman: such as -He who knows Brahman becomes Brahman 5 (Mu. Up. Ill, 2, 9). Hence the knowledge of the unity of Brahman and the Self cannot be of the nature of figurative combination and the like. The knowledge of Brahman does, therefore, not depend on the active energy of man, but is analogous to the knowledge of those things which are the objects of perception, inference, and so on, and thus depends on the object of knowledge only. Of such a Brahman or its knowledge it is impossible to establish, by reasoning, any connection with actions.
Nor, again, can we connect Brahman with acts by repre¬ senting it as the object of the action of knowing. For that it is not such is expressly declared in two passages, viz. e It is different from the known and again above (i. e. different from) the unknown 5 (Ken. Up. I, 3); and ‘How should he know him by whom he knows all this? 3 (B ri. Up.
II, 4,13.) In the same way Brahman is expressly declared not to be the object of the act of devout meditation, viz. in the second half of the verse, Ken. Up. I, 5 > whose first half 1 The butter used in the upa^uya^a is ceremonially purified by the wife of the sacrificer looking at it; so, it might be said, the Self of him who meditates on Brahman (and who as kartn*—agent— stands in a subordinate anga-relation to the karman of meditation) is merely purified by the cognition of its being one with Brahman.
declares it not to be an object (of speech, mind, and so on), c That which is not proclaimed by speech, by which speech is proclaimed, that only know to be Brahman, not that on which people devoutly meditate as this/ If it should be objected that if Brahman is not an object (of speech, mind, &c.) the ^astra can impossibly be its source, we refute this objection by the remark that the aim of the ^astra is to discard all distinctions fictitiously created by Nescience. The ^astra’s purport is not to represent Brahman definitely as this or that object, its purpose is rather to show that Brahman as the eternal subject (pratyagatman, the inward Self) is never an object, and thereby to remove the dis¬ tinction of objects known, knowers, acts of knowledge, &c., which is fictitiously created by Nescience. Accordingly the ^•astra says, ‘ By whom it is not thought by him it is thought, by whom it is thought he does not know it; un¬ known by those who know it, it is known by those who do not know it’ (Ken. Up. II, 3); and ‘Thou couldst not see the seer of sight, thou couldst not hear the hearer of hearing, nor perceive the perceiver of perception, nor know the knower of knowledge’ (Bn. Up. Ill, 4, 2). As thereby (i. e.
by the knowledge derived from the ^astra) the imagination of the transitoriness of Release which is due to Nescience is discarded, and Release is shown to be of the nature of the eternally free Self, it cannot be charged with the im¬ perfection of non-eternality. Those, on the other hand, who consider Release to be something to be effected properly maintain that it depends on the action of mind, speech, or body. So, likewise, those who consider it to be a mere modification. Non-eternality of Release is the certain consequence of these two opinions; for we observe in common life that things which are modifications, such as sour milk and the like, and things which are effects, such as jars, &c., are non-eternal. Nor, again, can it be said that there is a dependance on action in consequence of (Brahman or Release) being something which is to be obtained 1; for as Brahman constitutes a person’s Self it is 1 An hypothesis which might be proposed for the purpose of not something to be attained by that person. And even if Brahman were altogether different from a person’s Self still it would not be something to be obtained; for as it is omnipresent it is part of its nature that it is ever present to every one, just as the (all-pervading) ether is. Nor, again, can it be maintained that Release is something to be cere¬ monially purified, and as such depends on an activity.
For ceremonial purification (sa^skara) results either from the accretion of some excellence or from the removal of some blemish. The former alternative does not apply to Release as it is of the nature of Brahman, to which no excellence can be added; nor, again, does the latter alter¬ native apply, since Release is of the nature of Brahman, which is eternally pure.—But, it might be said, Release might be a quality of the Self which is merely hidden and becomes manifest on the Self being purified by some action; just as the quality of clearness becomes manifest in a mirror when the mirror is cleaned by means of the action of rubbing.—This objection is invalid, we reply, because the Self cannot be the abode of any action. For an action cannot exist without modifying that in which it abides. But if the Self were modified by an action its non-eternality would result therefrom, and texts such as the following, ‘ unchangeable he is called,’ would thus be stultified; an altogether unacceptable result. Hence it is impossible to assume that any action should abide in the Self. On the other hand, the Self cannot be purified by actions abiding in something else as it stands in no relation to that extraneous something. Nor will it avail to point out (as a quasi-analogous case) that the embodied Self (dehin, the individual soul) is purified by certain ritual actions which abide in the body, such as bathing, rinsing one’s mouth, wearing the sacrificial thread, and the like.
For what is purified by those actions is that Self merely which is joined to the body, i.e. the Self in so far as it is under the power of Nescience. For it is a matter of perobviating the imputation to moksha of non-eternality which results from the two preceding hypotheses.