The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya: Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1
Religion
The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya: Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1
Vedanta
Here the Sa@nkhya comes forward with a new objection. The word 'Self,'
he says, may be applied to the pradhana, although unintelligent, because
it is sometimes figuratively used in the sense of 'that which effects
all purposes of another;' as, for instance, a king applies the word
'Self' to some servant who carries out all the king's intentions,
'Bhadrasena is my (other) Self.' For the pradhana, which effects the
enjoyment and the emancipation of the soul, serves the latter in the
same way as a minister serves his king in the affairs of peace and war.
Or else, it may be said, the one word 'Self' may refer to
non-intelligent things as well as to intelligent beings, as we see that
such expressions as 'the Self of the elements,' 'the Self of the
senses,' are made use of, and as the one word 'light' (jyotis) denotes a
certain sacrifice (the jyotish/t/oma) as well as a flame. How then does
it follow from the word 'Self' that the thinking (ascribed to the cause
of the world) is not to be taken in a figurative sense?
To this last argumentation the Sutrakara replies:
7. (The pradhana cannot be designated by the term 'Self') because
release is taught of him who takes his stand on that (the Sat).
The non-intelligent pradhana cannot be the object of the term 'Self'
because in the passage Ch. Up. VI, 2 ff., where the subtle Sat which is
under discussion is at first referred to in the sentence, 'That is the
Self,' and where the subsequent clause, 'That art thou, O /S/vetaketu,'
declares the intelligent /S/vetaketu to have his abode in the Self, a
passage subsequent to the two quoted (viz. 'a man who has a teacher
obtains true knowledge; for him there is only delay as long as he is not
delivered, then he will be perfect') declares final release. For if the
non-intelligent pradhana were denoted by the term 'Sat' and did
comprehend--by means of the phrase 'That art thou'--persons desirous of
final release who as such are intelligent, the meaning could only be
'Thou art non-intelligent;' so that Scripture would virtually make
contradictory statements to the disadvantage of man, and would thus
cease to be a means of right knowledge. But to assume that the faultless
/s/astra is not a means of right knowledge, would be contrary to reason.
And if the /s/astra, considered as a means of right knowledge, should
point out to a man desirous of release, but ignorant of the way to it, a
non-intelligent Self as the real Self, he would--comparable to the blind
man who had caught hold of the ox's tail[96]--cling to the view of that
being the Self, and thus never be able to reach the real Self different
from the false Self pointed out to him; hence he would be debarred from
what constitutes man's good, and would incur evil. We must therefore
conclude that, just as the /s/astra teaches the agnihotra and similar
performances in their true nature as means for those who are desirous of
the heavenly world, so the passage 'that is the Self, that art thou, O
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