If we have not to discriminate between a lower and a higher knowledge of Brahman, it follows that the distinction of a lower and a higher Brahman is likewise not valid. But this is not a point to be decided at once on the negative evidence of the fourth adhyaya, but regarding which the entire body of the Vedanta-sutras has to be consulted. And intimately connected with this investigation--in fact, one with it from a certain point of view--is the question whether the Sutras afford any evidence of their author having held the doctrine of Maya, the principle of illusion, by the association with which the highest Brahman, in itself transcending all qualities, appears as the lower Brahman or I/s/vara. That Ramanuja denies the distinction of the two Brahmans and the doctrine of Maya we have seen above; we shall, however, in the subsequent investigation, pay less attention to his views and interpretations than to the indications furnished by the Sutras themselves. Placing myself at the point of view of a /S/a@nkara, I am startled at the outset by the second Sutra of the first adhyaya, which undertakes to give a definition of Brahman. 'Brahman is that whence the origination and so on (i.e. the sustentation and reabsorption) of this world proceed.' What, we must ask, is this Sutra meant to define?--That Brahman, we are inclined to answer, whose cognition the first Sutra declares to constitute the task of the entire Vedanta; that Brahman whose cognition is the only road to final release; that Brahman in fact which /S/a@nkara calls the highest.--But, here we must object to ourselves, the highest Brahman is not properly defined as that from which the world originates. In later Vedantic writings, whose authors were clearly conscious of the distinction of the higher absolute Brahman and the lower Brahman related to Maya or the world, we meet with definitions of Brahman of an altogether different type. I need only remind the reader of the current definition of Brahman as sa/k/-/k/id-ananda, or, to mention one individual instance, refer to the introductory /s/lokas of the Pa/nk/ada/s/i dilating on the sa/m/vid svayam-prabha, the self-luminous principle of thought which in all time, past or future, neither starts into being nor perishes (P.D. I, 7). 'That from which the world proceeds' can by a /S/a@nkara be accepted only as a definition of I/s/vara, of Brahman which by its association with Maya is enabled to project the false appearance of this world, and it certainly is as improbable that the Sutras should open with a definition of that inferior principle, from whose cognition there can accrue no permanent benefit, as, according to a remark made above, it is unlikely that they should conclude with a description of the state of those who know the lower Brahman only, and thus are debarred from obtaining true release. As soon, on the other hand, as we discard the idea of a twofold Brahman and conceive Brahman as one only, as the