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
Although we admit, the purvapakshin resumes, that the chapter about the
pra/n/a does not furnish any instruction regarding some outward deity,
since it contains a multitude of references to the interior Self; still
we deny that it is concerned with Brahman.--For what reason?--Because it
mentions characteristic marks of the individual soul on the one hand,
and of the chief vital air on the other hand. The passage, 'Let no man
try to find out what speech is, let him know the speaker,' mentions a
characteristic mark of the individual soul, and must therefore be held
to point out as the object of knowledge the individual soul which rules
and employs the different organs of action such as speech and so on. On
the other hand, we have the passage, 'But pra/n/a alone, the intelligent
Self, having laid hold of this body makes it rise up,' which points to
the chief vital air; for the chief attribute of the vital air is that it
sustains the body. Similarly, we read in the colloquy of the vital airs
(Pra. Up. II, 3), concerning speech and the other vital airs, 'Then
pra/n/a (the chief vital air) as the best said to them: Be not deceived;
I alone dividing myself fivefold support this body and keep it.' Those,
again, who in the passage quoted above read 'this one (masc.), the
body[132]' must give the following explanation, Pra/n/a having laid hold
of this one, viz. either the individual soul or the aggregate of the
sense organs, makes the body rise up. The individual soul as well as the
chief vital air may justly be designated as the intelligent Self; for
the former is of the nature of intelligence, and the latter (although
non-intelligent in itself) is the abode of other pra/n/as, viz. the
sense organs, which are the instruments of intelligence. Moreover, if
the word pra/n/a be taken to denote the individual soul as well as the
chief vital air, the pra/n/a and the intelligent Self may be spoken of
in two ways, either as being non-different on account of their mutual
concomitance, or as being different on account of their (essentially
different) individual character; and in these two different ways they
are actually spoken of in the two following passages, 'What is pra/n/a
that is praj/n/a, what is praj/n/a that is pra/n/a;' and, 'For together
do these two live in the body and together do they depart.' If, on the
other hand, pra/n/a denoted Brahman, what then could be different from
what? For these reasons pra/n/a does not denote Brahman, but either the
individual soul or the chief vital air or both.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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