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
any way conflict with other texts declaring that matter and souls form
the body of the Lord, and that matter and souls in their causal
condition are in a subtle state, not admitting of the distinction of
names and forms while in their 'effected' gross state they are subject
to that distinction. On the other hand, we do not see how there is any
opening for theories maintaining the connexion of Brahman with Nescience,
or distinctions in Brahman due to limiting adjuncts (upâdhi)--such and
similar doctrines rest on fallacious reasoning, and flatly contradict
Scripture.
There is nothing contradictory in allowing that certain texts declare
the essential distinction of matter, souls, and the Lord, and their
mutual relation as modes and that to which the modes belong, and that
other texts again represent them as standing in the relation of cause
and effect, and teach cause and effect to be one. We may illustrate this
by an analogous case from the Karmakânda. There six separate oblations
to Agni, and so on, are enjoined by separate so-called originative
injunctions; these are thereupon combined into two groups (viz. the new
moon and the full-moon sacrifices) by a double clause referring to those
groups, and finally a so-called injunction of qualification enjoins the
entire sacrifice as something to be performed by persons entertaining a
certain wish. In a similar way certain Vedânta-texts give instruction
about matter, souls, and the Lord as separate entities ('Perishable is
the pradhâna, imperishable and immortal Hara,' &c., Svet Up. I, 10; and
others); then other texts teach that matter and souls in all their
different states constitute the body of the highest Person, while the
latter is their Self ('Whose body the earth is,' &c.); and finally
another group of texts teaches--by means of words such as 'Being,'
'Brahman,' 'Self,' denoting the highest Self to which the body belongs--
that the one highest Self in its causal and effected states comprises
within itself the triad of entities which had been taught in separation
('Being only this was in the beginning'; 'In that all this has its Self;
'All this is Brahman').--That the highest Self with matter and souls for
its body should be simply called the highest Self, is no more
objectionable than that that particular form of Self which is invested
with a human body should simply be spoken of as Self or soul--as when we
say 'This is a happy soul.'
Nescience cannot be terminated by the simple act of cognising Brahman as
the universal self.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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