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
6. If it be said that (the word 'seeing') has a secondary (figurative)
meaning; we deny this, on account of the word 'Self' (being applied to
the cause of the world).
The contention that, because, in passages standing close by, the word
'seeing' is used in a secondary sense, the 'seeing' predicated of the
Sat ('Being') is also to be taken in a secondary sense, viz. as denoting
(not real thought but) a certain condition previous to creation, cannot
be upheld; for in other texts met with in the same section (viz. 'All
this has that for its Self; that is the True, that is the Self', Ch. Up.
VI, 8, 7), that which first had been spoken of as Sat is called the
'Self'. The designation 'Self' which in this passage is applied to the
Sat in its relation to the entire world, sentient or non-sentient, is in
no way appropriate to the Pradhâna. We therefore conclude that, as the
highest Self is the Self of fire, water, and earth also, the words fire,
&c. (in the passages stating that fire, &c. thought) denote the highest
Self only. This conclusion agrees with the text 'Let me enter into these
three beings with this living Self, and evolve names and forms', for
this text implies that fire, water, &c. possess substantial being and
definite names only through the highest Self having entered into them.
The thought ascribed in the text to fire, water, &c. hence is thought in
the proper sense, and the hypothesis that, owing to its connexion with
these latter texts, the thought predicated of 'Being' ('it thought,' &c.
) should be thought in a figurative sense only thus lapses altogether.
The next following Sûtra confirms the same view.
7. Because release is taught of him who takes his stand on it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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