The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja: Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48
Religion
The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja: Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48
Vedanta
passage means--the womb of the world is the great Brahman, i.e. non-
intelligent matter in its subtle state, commonly called Prakriti; with
this I connect the embryo, i.e. the intelligent principle. From this
contact of the non-intelligent and the intelligent, due to my will,
there ensues the origination of all beings from gods down to lifeless
things.
Non-intelligent matter and intelligent beings--holding the relative
positions of objects of enjoyment and enjoying subjects, and appearing
in multifarious forms--other scriptural texts declare to be permanently
connected with the highest Person in so far as they constitute his body,
and thus are controlled by him; the highest Person thus constituting
their Self. Compare the following passages: 'He who dwells in the earth
and within the earth, whom the earth does not know, whose body the earth
is, and who rules the earth within, he is thy Self, the ruler within,
the immortal,' &c. (Bri. Up. III, 7, 3-23); 'He who moves within the
earth, whose body the earth is, &c.; he who moves within death, whose
body death is,' &c.(Subâla Up. VII, 1). In this latter passage the word
'death' denotes what is also called 'darkness,' viz. non-intelligent
matter in its subtle state; as appears from another passage in the same
Upanishad,'the Imperishable is merged in darkness.' And compare also
'Entered within, the ruler of creatures, the Self of all' (Taitt. Âr.
III, 24).
Other texts, again, aim at teaching that the highest Self to whom non-
intelligent and intelligent beings stand in the relation of body, and
hence of modes, subsists in the form of the world, in its causal as well
as in its effected aspect, and hence speak of the world in this its
double aspect as that which is (the Real); so e.g. 'Being only this was
in the beginning, one only without a second--it desired, may I be many,
may I grow forth--it sent forth fire,' &c., up to 'all these creatures
have their root in that which is,' &c., up to 'that art thou, O
Svetaketu' (Ch. Up. VI, 2-8); 'He wished, may I be many,' &c., up to 'it
became the true and the untrue' (Taitt. Up. II, 6). These sections also
refer to the essential distinction of nature between non-intelligent
matter, intelligent beings, and the highest Self which is established by
other scriptural texts; so in the Chândogya passage, 'Let me enter those
three divine beings with this living Self, and let me then evolve names
and forms'; and in the Taitt. passage, 'Having sent forth that he
entered into it; having entered it he became sat and tyat, knowledge and
(what is) without knowledge, the true and the untrue,' &c. These two
passages evidently have the same purport, and hence the soul's having
its Self in Brahman--which view is implied in the Ch. passage--must be
understood as resting thereon that the souls (together, with matter)
constitute the body of Brahman as asserted in the Taitt. passage ('it
became knowledge and that which is without knowledge,' i.e. souls and
matter).
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