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
At the same time it is practically treated as a quality because
it always has the substance tejas for its substrate, and depends on it.
This must not be objected to on the ground that what is called light is
really nothing but dissolving particles of matter which proceed from the
substance tejas; for if this were so, shining gems and the sun would in
the end consume themselves completely. Moreover, if the flame of a lamp
consisted of dissolving particles of matter, it would never be
apprehended as a whole; for no reason can be stated why those particles
should regularly rise in an agglomerated form to the height of four
fingers breadth, and after that simultaneously disperse themselves
uniformly in all directions--upwards, sideways, and downwards. The fact
is that the flame of the lamp together with its light is produced anew
every moment and again vanishes every moment; as we may infer from the
successive combination of sufficient causes (viz. particles of oil and
wick) and from its coming to an end when those causes are completely
consumed.
Analogously to the lamp, the Self is essentially intelligent (kid-rûpa),
and has intelligence (kaitanya) for its quality. And to be essentially
intelligent means to be self-luminous. There are many scriptural texts
declaring this, compare e.g. 'As a mass of salt has neither inside nor
outside but is altogether a mass of taste, thus indeed that Self has
neither inside nor outside but is altogether a mass of knowledge' (Bri.
Up. IV, 5, 13); 'There that person becomes self-luminous, there is no
destruction of the knowing of the knower' (Bri. Up. IV, 3, 14; 30); 'He
who knows, let me smell this, he is the Self (Ch. Up. VIII, 12, 4); 'Who
is that Self? That one who is made of knowledge, among the prânas,
within the heart, the light, the person' (Bri. Up. IV, 3, 7); 'For it is
he who sees, hears, smells, tastes, thinks, considers, acts, the person
whose Self is knowledge' (Pr. Up. IV, 9); 'Whereby should one know the
knower' (Bri. Up. IV, 5, 15). 'This person knows,' 'The seer does not
see death nor illness nor pain' (Ch. Up. VII, 26, 2); 'That highest
person not remembering this body into which he was born' (Ch. Up. VIII,
12, 3); 'Thus these sixteen parts of the spectator that go towards the
person; when they have readied the person, sink into him' (Pr. Up. VI,
5); 'From this consisting of mind, there is different an interior Self
consisting of knowledge' (Taitt. Up. II, 4). And the Sûtrakâra also will
refer to the Self as a 'knower' in II, 3, 18. All which shows that the
self-luminous Self is a knower, i.e. a knowing subject, and not pure
light (non-personal intelligence). In general we may say that where
there is light it must belong to something, as shown by the light of a
lamp. The Self thus cannot be mere consciousness. The grammarians
moreover tell us that words such as 'consciousness,' 'knowledge,' &c.,
are relative; neither ordinary nor Vedic language uses expressions such
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