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
Against this view we argue with the sutrakara as follows:--'Of the world
consisting of heaven, earth, and so on, which in the quoted passage is
spoken of as woven (upon something), the highest Brahman must be the
abode.'--Why?--On account of the word 'own,' i.e. on account of the word
'Self.' For we meet with the word 'Self' in the passage, 'Know him alone
as the Self.' This term 'Self' is thoroughly appropriate only if we
understand the highest Self and not anything else.--(To propound another
interpretation of the phrase 'sva/s/abdat' employed in the Sutra.)
Sometimes also Brahman is spoken of in /S/ruti as the general abode by
its own terms (i.e. by terms properly designating Brahman), as, for
instance (Ch. Up. VI. 8, 4), 'All these creatures, my dear, have their
root in the being, their abode in the being, their rest in the
being[164].'--(Or else we have to explain 'sva/s/abdena' as follows), In
the passages preceding and following the passage under discussion
Brahman is glorified with its own names[165]; cp. Mu. Up. II, 1, 10,
'The Person is all this, sacrifice, penance, Brahman, the highest
Immortal,' and II, 2, 11, 'That immortal Brahman is before, is behind,
Brahman is to the right and left.' Here, on account of mention being
made of an abode and that which abides, and on account of the
co-ordination expressed in the passage, 'Brahman is all' (Mu. Up. II, 2,
11), a suspicion might arise that Brahman is of a manifold variegated
nature, just as in the case of a tree consisting of different parts we
distinguish branches, stem, and root. In order to remove this suspicion
the text declares (in the passage under discussion), 'Know him alone as
the Self.' The sense of which is: The Self is not to be known as
manifold, qualified by the universe of effects; you are rather to
dissolve by true knowledge the universe of effects, which is the mere
product of Nescience, and to know that one Self, which is the general
abode, as uniform. Just as when somebody says, 'Bring that on which
Devadatta sits,' the person addressed brings the chair only (the abode
of Devadatta), not Devadatta himself; so the passage, 'Know him alone as
the Self,' teaches that the object to be known is the one uniform Self
which constitutes the general abode. Similarly another scriptural
passage reproves him who believes in the unreal world of effects, 'From
death to death goes he who sees any difference here' (Ka. Up. II, 4,
11). The statement of co-ordination made in the clause 'All is Brahman'
aims at dissolving (the wrong conception of the reality of) the world,
and not in any way at intimating that Brahman is multiform in
nature[166]; for the uniformity (of Brahman's nature) is expressly
stated in other passages such as the following one, 'As a mass of salt
has neither inside nor outside, but is altogether a mass of taste, thus
indeed has that Self neither inside nor outside, but is altogether a
mass of knowledge' (B/ri/. Up. IV, 5, 13).--For all these reasons the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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