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
It has not, he says, been satisfactorily proved that there is no
scriptural authority for the pradhana; for some /s/akhas contain
expressions which seem to convey the idea of the pradhana. From this it
follows that Kapila and other supreme /ri/shis maintain the doctrine of
the pradhana being the general cause only because it is based on the
Veda.--As long therefore as it has not been proved that those passages
to which the Sa@nkhyas refer have a different meaning (i.e. do not
allude to the pradhana), all our previous argumentation as to the
omniscient Brahman being the cause of the world must be considered as
unsettled. We therefore now begin a new chapter which aims at proving
that those passages actually have a different meaning.
The Sa@nkhyas maintain that that also which is based on inference, i.e.
the pradhana, is perceived in the text of some /s/akhas. We read, for
instance, they say, in the Ka/th/aka (I, 3, 11), 'Beyond the Great there
is the Undeveloped, beyond the Undeveloped there is the Person.' There
we recognise, named by the same names and enumerated in the same order,
the three entities with which we are acquainted from the
Sa@nkhya-sm/ri/ti, viz. the great principle, the Undeveloped (the
pradhana), and the soul[228]. That by the Undeveloped is meant the
pradhana is to be concluded from the common use of Sm/ri/ti and from the
etymological interpretation of which the word admits, the pradhana being
called undeveloped because it is devoid of sound and other qualities. It
cannot therefore be asserted that there is no scriptural authority for
the pradhana. And this pradhana vouched for by Scripture we declare to
be the cause of the world, on the ground of Scripture, Sm/ri/ti, and
ratiocination.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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