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
something for--let us say, keeps or feeds--his servant. This last
criticism you must not attempt to ward off by maintaining that the
master in keeping his servant acts with a view to himself (to his own
advantage); for the servant in serving the master likewise acts with a
view to himself.--And as, further, we have no adequate definition of
'kârya,' it would be inappropriate to define sesha as that which is
correlative to kârya, and seshin as that which is correlative to sesha.--
Nor, finally, may we define 'that which is aimed at by action' as that
which is the final end (prayojana) of action; for by the final end of an
action we could only understand the end for which the agent undertakes
the action, and this end is no other than the desired object. As thus
'what is aimed at by action' cannot be defined otherwise than what is
desired, kârya cannot be defined as what is to be effected by action and
stands to action in the relation of principal matter (pradhâna or
seshin).
(Let it then be said that the 'niyoga,' i.e. what is commonly called the
apûrva--the supersensuous result of an action which later on produces
the sensible result--constitutes the prayojana--the final purpose--of
the action.--But) the apûrva also can, as it is something different from
the direct objects of desire, viz. pleasure and the cessation of pain,
be viewed only as a means of bringing about these direct objects, and as
something itself to be effected by the action; it is for this very
reason that it is something different from the action, otherwise the
action itself would be that which is effected by the action. The thing
to be effected by the action-which is expressed by means of optative and
imperative verbal forms such as yajeta, 'let him sacrifice'--is, in
accordance with the fact of its being connected with words such as
svargakâmah, 'he who is desirous of heaven', understood to be the means
of bringing about (the enjoyment of) the heavenly world; and as the
(sacrificial) action itself is transitory, there is assumed an
altogether 'new' or 'unprecedented' (apûrva) effect of it which (later
on) is to bring about the enjoyment of heaven. This so-called 'apûrva'
can therefore be understood only with regard to its capability of
bringing about the heavenly world. Now it certainly is ludicrous to
assert that the apûrva, which is assumed to the end of firmly
establishing the independent character of the effect of the action first
recognised as such (i.e. independent), later on becomes the means of
realising the heavenly world; for as the word expressing the result of
the action (yajta) appears in syntactical connexion with 'svargakâmah'
(desirous of heaven), it does not, from the very beginning, denote an
independent object of action, and moreover it is impossible to recognise
an independent result of action other than either pleasure or cessation
of pain, or the means to bring about these two results.--What, moreover,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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