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
This view is finally combated by the Mîmâmsaka. Even if, he says, we
allow the Vedânta-texts to have a purport in so far as they are
supplementary to injunctions of meditation, they cannot be viewed as
valid means of knowledge with regard to Brahman. Do the texts referring
to Brahman, we ask, occupy the position of valid means of knowledge in
so far as they form a syntactic whole with the injunctions of meditation,
or as independent sentences? In the former case the purport of the
syntactic whole is simply to enjoin meditation, and it cannot therefore
aim at giving instruction about Brahman. If, on the other hand, the
texts about Brahman are separate independent sentences, they cannot have
the purport of prompting to action and are therefore devoid of
instructive power. Nor must it be said that meditation is a kind of
continued remembrance, and as such requires to be defined by the object
remembered; and that the demand of the injunction of meditation for
something to be remembered is satisfied by texts such as 'All this is
that Self', 'the True, knowledge, infinite is Brahman,' &c., which set
forth the nature and attributes of Brahman and--forming a syntactic
whole with the injunctions--are a valid means of knowledge with regard
to the existence of the matter they convey. For the fact is that the
demand on the part of an injunction of meditation for an object to be
remembered may be satisfied even by something unreal (not true), as in
the case of injunctions such as 'Let him meditate upon mind as Brahman'
(Ch. Up. III, 18, 1): the real existence of the object of meditation is
therefore not demanded.--The final conclusion arrived at in this
pûrvapaksha is therefore as follows. As the Vedânta-texts do not aim at
prompting to action or the cessation of action; as, even on the
supposition of their being supplementary to injunctions of meditation,
the only thing they effect is to set forth the nature of the object of
meditation; and as, even if they are viewed as independent sentences,
they accomplish the end of man (i.e. please, gratify) by knowledge
merely--being thus comparable to tales with which we soothe children or
sick persons; it does not lie within their province to establish the
reality of an accomplished thing, and hence Scripture cannot be viewed
as a valid means for the cognition of Brahman.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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