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
Our opponent may finally argue as follows:--Scripture is not unreal in
the same sense as a sky-flower is unreal; for antecedently to the
cognition of universal non-duality Scripture is viewed as something that
_is_, and only on the rise of that knowledge it is seen to be unreal. At
this latter time Scripture no longer is a means of cognising Brahman,
devoid of all difference, consisting of pure Intelligence; as long on
the other hand as it is such a means, Scripture _is_; for then we judge
'Scripture is.'--But to this we reply that if Scripture is not (true),
the judgment 'Scripture is' is false, and hence the knowledge resting on
false Scripture being false likewise, the object of that knowledge, i.e.
Brahman itself, is false. If the cognition of fire which rests on mist
being mistaken for smoke is false, it follows that the object of that
cognition, viz. fire itself, is likewise unreal. Nor can it be shown
that (in the case of Brahman) there is no possibility of ulterior
sublative cognition; for there may be such sublative cognition, viz. the
one expressed in the judgment 'the Reality is a Void.' And if you say
that this latter judgment rests on error, we point out that according to
yourself the knowledge of Brahman is also based on error. And of our
judgment (viz. 'the Reality is a Void') it may truly be said that all
further negation is impossible.--But there is no need to continue this
demolition of an altogether baseless theory.
[FOOTNOTE 77:1. And those manifestations of sound by means of various
tones are themselves something real.]
No scriptural texts teach a Brahman devoid of all difference.
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