Part 38

It remains for us to refute the objection that on account of the inferential marks of the individual soul and the chief vital air, which are met with in the complementary passage, either the one or the other must be meant in the passage under discussion, and not the highest Lord.--We therefore remark that that objection has already been disposed of under I, 1, 31. There it was shown that from an interpretation similar to the one here proposed by the pûrvapakshin there would result a threefold meditation one having Brahman for its object, a second one directed on the individual soul, and a third one connected with the chief vital air. Now the same result would present itself in our case, and that would be unacceptable as we must infer from the introductory as well as the concluding clauses, that the passage under discussion refers to Brahman. With reference to the introductory clause this has been already proved; that the concluding passage also refers to Brahman, we infer from the fact of there being stated in it a pre-eminently high reward, 'Warding off all evil he who knows this obtains pre-eminence among all beings, sovereignty, supremacy.'--But if this is so, the sense of the passage under discussion is already settled by the discussion of the passage about Pratarda/n/a (I, 1, 31); why, then, the present Sûtra?--No, we reply; the sense of our passage is not yet settled, since under I, 1, 31 it has not been proved that the clause, 'Or he whose work is this,' refers to Brahman. Hence there arises again, in connexion with the present passage, a doubt whether the individual soul and the chief vital air may not be meant, and that doubt has again to be refuted.--The word prâ/n/a occurs, moreover, in the sense of Brahman, so in the passage, 'The mind settles down on prâ/n/a' (Ch. Up. VI, 8, 2).--The inferential marks of the individual soul also have, on account of the introductory and concluding clauses referring to Brahman, to be explained so as not to give rise to any discrepancy.

18. But Jaimini thinks that (the reference to the individual soul) has another purport, on account of the question and answer; and thus some also (read in their text).

Whether the passage under discussion is concerned with the individual soul or with Brahman, is, in the opinion of the teacher Jaimini, no matter for dispute, since the reference to the individual soul has a different purport, i.e. aims at intimating Brahman. He founds this his opinion on a question and a reply met with in the text. After Ajâta/s/atru has taught Bâlâki, by waking the sleeping man, that the soul is different from the vital air, he asks the following question, 'Bâlâki, where did this person here sleep? Where was he? Whence came he thus back?' This question clearly refers to something different from the individual soul. And so likewise does the reply, 'When sleeping he sees no dream, then he becomes one with that prâ/n/a alone;' and, 'From that Self all prâ/n/as proceed, each towards its place, from the prâ/n/as the gods, from the gods the worlds.'--Now it is the general Vedânta doctrine that at the time of deep sleep the soul becomes one with the highest Brahman, and that from the highest Brahman the whole world proceeds, inclusive of prâ/n/a, and so on. When Scripture therefore represents as the object of knowledge that in which there takes place the deep sleep of the soul, characterised by absence of consciousness and utter tranquillity, i.e. a state devoid of all those specific cognitions which are produced by the limiting adjuncts of the soul, and from which the soul returns when the sleep is broken; we understand that the highest Self is meant.--Moreover, the Vâjasaneyi/s/âkhâ, which likewise contains the colloquy of Bâlâki and Ajâta/s/atru, clearly refers to the individual soul by means of the term, 'the person consisting of cognition' (vij/ñ/ânamaya), and distinguishes from it the highest Self ('Where was then the person consisting of cognition? and from whence did he thus come back?' B/ri/. Up. II, 1, 16); and later on, in the reply to the above question, declares that 'the person consisting of cognition lies in the ether within the heart.' Now we know that the word 'ether' may be used to denote the highest Self, as, for instance, in the passage about the small ether within the lotus of the heart (Ch. Up. VIII, 1, 1). Further on the B/ri/. Up. says, 'All the Selfs came forth from that Self;' by which statement of the coming forth of all the conditioned Selfs it intimates that the highest Self is the one general cause.--The doctrine conveyed by the rousing of the sleeping person, viz. that the individual soul is different from the vital air, furnishes at the same time a further argument against the opinion that the passage under discussion refers to the vital air.

19. (The Self to be seen, to be heard, &c. is the highest Self) on account of the connected meaning of the sentences.

We read in the B/ri/hadâra/n/yaka, in the Maitreyî-brâhma/n/a the following passage, 'Verily, a husband is not dear that you may love the husband, &c. &c.; verily, everything is not dear that you may love everything; but that you may love the Self therefore everything is dear. Verily, the Self is to be seen, to be heard, to be perceived, to be marked, O Maitreyî! When the Self has been seen, heard, perceived, and known, then all this is known' (B/ri/. Up. IV, 5, 6).--Here the doubt arises whether that which is represented as the object to be seen, to be heard, and so on, is the cognitional Self (the individual soul) or the highest Self.--But whence the doubt?--Because, we reply, the Self is, on the one hand, by the mention of dear things such as husband and so on, indicated as the enjoyer whence it appears that the passage refers to the individual soul; and because, on the other hand, the declaration that through the knowledge of the Self everything becomes known points to the highest Self.

The pûrvapakshin maintains that the passage refers to the individual soul, on account of the strength of the initial statement. The text declares at the outset that all the objects of enjoyment found in this world, such as husband, wife, riches, and so on, are dear on account of the Self, and thereby gives us to understand that the enjoying (i.e. the individual) Self is meant; if thereupon it refers to the Self as the object of sight and so on, what other Self should it mean than the same individual Self?--A subsequent passage also (viz. 'Thus does this great Being, endless, unlimited, consisting of nothing but knowledge, rise from out of these elements, and vanish again after them. When he has departed there is no more knowledge'), which describes how the great Being under discussion rises, as the Self of knowledge, from the elements, shows that the object of sight is no other than the cognitional Self, i.e. the individual soul. The concluding clause finally, 'How, O beloved, should he know the knower?' shows, by means of the term 'knower,' which denotes an agent, that the individual soul is meant. The declaration that through the cognition of the Self everything becomes known must therefore not be interpreted in the literal sense, but must be taken to mean that the world of objects of enjoyment is known through its relation to the enjoying soul.

To this we make the following reply.--The passage makes a statement about the highest Self, on account of the connected meaning of the entire section. If we consider the different passages in their mutual connexion, we find that they all refer to the highest Self. After Maitreyî has heard from Yâj/ñ/avalkya that there is no hope of immortality by wealth, she expresses her desire of immortality in the words, 'What should I do with that by which I do not become immortal? What my Lord knoweth tell that to me;' and thereupon Yâj/ñ/avalkya expounds to her the knowledge of the Self. Now Scripture as well as Sm/ri/ti declares that immortality is not to be reached but through the knowledge of the highest Self.--The statement further that through the knowledge of the Self everything becomes known can be taken in its direct literal sense only if by the Self we understand the highest cause. And to take it in a non-literal sense (as the pûrvapakshin proposes) is inadmissible, on account of the explanation given of that statement in a subsequent passage, viz. 'Whosoever looks for the Brahman class elsewhere than in the Self, is abandoned by the Brahman class.' Here it is said that whoever erroneously views this world with its Brahmans and so on, as having an independent existence apart from the Self, is abandoned by that very world of which he has taken an erroneous view; whereby the view that there exists any difference is refuted. And the immediately subsequent clause, 'This everything is the Self,' gives us to understand that the entire aggregate of existing things is non-different from the Self; a doctrine further confirmed by the similes of the drum and so on.--By explaining further that the Self about which he had been speaking is the cause of the universe of names, forms, and works ('There has been breathed forth from this great Being what we have as /Ri/gveda,' &c.) Yâj/ñ/avalkya again shows that it is the highest Self.--To the same conclusion he leads us by declaring, in the paragraph which treats of the natural centres of things, that the Self is the centre of the whole world with the objects, the senses and the mind, that it has neither inside nor outside, that it is altogether a mass of knowledge.--From all this it follows that what the text represents as the object of sight and so on is the highest Self.

We now turn to the remark made by the pûrvapakshin that the passage teaches the individual soul to be the object of sight, because it is, in the early part of the chapter denoted as something dear.

20. (The circumstance of the soul being represented as the object of sight) indicates the fulfilment of the promissory statement; so Â/s/marathya thinks.

The fact that the text proclaims as the object of sight that Self which is denoted as something, dear indicates the fulfilment of the promise made in the passages, 'When the Self is known all this is known,' 'All this is that Self.' For if the individual soul were different from the highest Self, the knowledge of the latter would not imply the knowledge of the former, and thus the promise that through the knowledge of one thing everything is to be known would not be fulfilled. Hence the initial statement aims at representing the individual Self and the highest Self as non-different for the purpose of fulfilling the promise made.--This is the opinion of the teacher Â/s/marathya[243].

21. (The initial statement identifies the individual soul and the highest Self) because the soul when it will depart (from the body) is such (i.e. one with the highest Self); thus Au/d/ulomi thinks.

The individual soul which is inquinated by the contact with its different limiting adjuncts, viz. body, senses, and mind (mano-buddhi), attains through the instrumentality of knowledge, meditation, and so on, a state of complete serenity, and thus enables itself, when passing at some future time out of the body, to become one with the highest Self; hence the initial statement in which it is represented as non-different from the highest Self. This is the opinion of the teacher Au/d/ulomi.--Thus Scripture says, 'That serene being arising from this body appears in its own form as soon as it has approached the highest light' (Ch. Up. VIII, 12, 3).--In another place Scripture intimates, by means of the simile of the rivers, that name and form abide in the individual soul, 'As the flowing rivers disappear in the sea, having lost their name and their form, thus a wise man freed from name and form goes to the divine Person who is greater than the great' (Mu. Up. III, 2, 8). I.e. as the rivers losing the names and forms abiding in them disappear in the sea, so the individual soul also losing the name and form abiding in it becomes united with the highest person. That the latter half of the passage has the meaning here assigned to it, follows from the parallelism which we must assume to exist between the two members of the comparison[244].

22. (The initial statement is made) because (the highest Self) exists in the condition (of the individual soul); so Kâ/s/ak/ri/tsna thinks.

Because the highest Self exists also in the condition of the individual soul, therefore, the teacher Kâ/s/ak/ri/tsna thinks, the initial statement which aims at intimating the non-difference of the two is possible. That the highest Self only is that which appears as the individual soul, is evident from the Brâhma/n/a-passage, 'Let me enter into them with this living Self and evolve names and forms,' and similar passages. We have also mantras to the same effect, for instance, 'The wise one who, having produced all forms and made all names, sits calling the things by their names' (Taitt. Âr. III, 12, 7)[245]. And where Scripture relates the creation of fire and the other elements, it does not at the same time relate a separate creation of the individual soul; we have therefore no right to look on the soul as a product of the highest Self, different from the latter.--In the opinion of the teacher Kâ/s/ak/ri/tsna the non-modified highest Lord himself is the individual soul, not anything else. Â/s/marathya, although meaning to say that the soul is not (absolutely) different from the highest Self, yet intimates by the expression, 'On account of the fulfilment of the promise'--which declares a certain mutual dependence--that there does exist a certain relation of cause and effect between the highest Self and the individual soul[246]. The opinion of Au/d/ulomi again clearly implies that the difference and non-difference of the two depend on difference of condition[247]. Of these three opinions we conclude that the one held by Kâ/s/ak/ri/tsna accords with Scripture, because it agrees with what all the Vedânta-texts (so, for instance, the passage, 'That art thou') aim at inculcating. Only on the opinion of Kâ/s/ak/ri/tsna immortality can be viewed as the result of the knowledge of the soul; while it would be impossible to hold the same view if the soul were a modification (product) of the Self and as such liable to lose its existence by being merged in its causal substance. For the same reason, name and form cannot abide in the soul (as was above attempted to prove by means of the simile of the rivers), but abide in the limiting adjunct and are ascribed to the soul itself in a figurative sense only. For the same reason the origin of the souls from the highest Self, of which Scripture speaks in some places as analogous to the issuing of sparks from the fire, must be viewed as based only on the limiting adjuncts of the soul.

The last three Sûtras have further to be interpreted so as to furnish replies to the second of the pûrvapakshin's arguments, viz. that the B/ri/hadâra/n/yaka passage represents as the object of sight the individual soul, because it declares that the great Being which is to be seen arises from out of these elements. 'There is an indication of the fulfilment of the promise; so Â/s/marathya thinks.' The promise is made in the two passages, 'When the Self is known, all this is known,' and 'All this is that Self.' That the Self is everything, is proved by the declaration that the whole world of names, forms, and works springs from one being, and is merged in one being[248]; and by its being demonstrated, with the help of the similes of the drum, and so on, that effect and cause are non-different. The fulfilment of the promise is, then, finally indicated by the text declaring that that great Being rises, in the form of the individual soul, from out of these elements; thus the teacher Â/s/marathya thinks. For if the soul and the highest Self are non-different, the promise that through the knowledge of one everything becomes known is capable of fulfilment.--'Because the soul when it will depart is such; thus Au/d/ulomi thinks.' The statement as to the non-difference of the soul and the Self (implied in the declaration that the great Being rises, &c.) is possible, because the soul when--after having purified itself by knowledge, and so on--it will depart from the body, is capable of becoming one with the highest Self. This is Au/d/ulomi's opinion.--'Because it exists in the condition of the soul; thus Kâ/s/ak/ri/tsna opines.' Because the highest Self itself is that which appears as the individual soul, the statement as to the non-difference of the two is well-founded. This is the view of the teacher Kâ/s/ak/ri/tsna.

But, an objection may be raised, the passage, 'Rising from out of these elements he vanishes again after them. When he has departed there is no more knowledge,' intimates the final destruction of the soul, not its identity with the highest Self!--By no means, we reply. The passage means to say only that on the soul departing from the body all specific cognition vanishes, not that the Self is destroyed. For an objection being raised--in the passage, 'Here thou hast bewildered me, Sir, when thou sayest that having departed there is no more knowledge'. Scripture itself explains that what is meant is not the annihilation of the Self, 'I say nothing that is bewildering. Verily, beloved, that Self is imperishable, and of an indestructible nature. But there takes place non-connexion with the mâtrâs.' That means: The eternally unchanging Self, which is one mass of knowledge, cannot possibly perish; but by means of true knowledge there is effected its dissociation from the mâtrâs, i.e. the elements and the sense organs, which are the product of Nescience. When the connexion has been solved, specific cognition, which depended on it, no longer takes place, and thus it can be said, that 'When he has departed there is no more knowledge.'

The third argument also of the pûrvapakshin, viz. that the word 'knower'--which occurs in the concluding passage, 'How should he know the knower?'--denotes an agent, and therefore refers to the individual soul as the object of sight, is to be refuted according to the view of Kâ/s/ak/ri/tsna.--Moreover, the text after having enumerated--in the passage, 'For where there is duality as it were, there one sees the other,' &c.--all the kinds of specific cognition which belong to the sphere of Nescience declares--in the subsequent passage, 'But when the Self only is all this, how should he see another?'--that in the sphere of true knowledge all specific cognition such as seeing, and so on, is absent. And, again, in order to obviate the doubt whether in the absence of objects the knower might not know himself, Yâj/ñ/avalkya goes on, 'How, O beloved, should he know himself, the knower?' As thus the latter passage evidently aims at proving the absence of specific cognition, we have to conclude that the word 'knower' is here used to denote that being which is knowledge, i.e. the Self.--That the view of Kâ/s/ak/ri/tsna is scriptural, we have already shown above. And as it is so, all the adherents of the Vedânta must admit that the difference of the soul and the highest Self is not real, but due to the limiting adjuncts, viz. the body, and so on, which are the product of name and form as presented by Nescience. That view receives ample confirmation from Scripture; compare, for instance, 'Being only, my dear, this was in the beginning, one, without a second' (Ch. Up. VI, 2, 1); 'The Self is all this' (Ch. Up. VII, 25, 2); 'Brahman alone is all this' (Mu. Up. II, 2, 11); 'This everything is that Self' (B/ri/. Up. II, 4, 6); 'There is no other seer but he' (B/ri/. Up. III, 7, 23); 'There is nothing that sees but it' (B/ri/. Up. III, 8, 11).--It is likewise confirmed by Sm/ri/ti; compare, for instance, 'Vâsudeva is all this' (Bha. Gî. VII, 19); 'Know me, O Bhârata, to be the soul in all bodies' (Bha. Gî. XIII, 2); 'He who sees the highest Lord abiding alike within all creatures' (Bha. Gî. XIII, 27).--The same conclusion is supported by those passages which deny all difference; compare, for instance, 'If he thinks, that is one and I another; he does not know' (B/ri/. Up. I, 4, 10); 'From death to death he goes who sees here any diversity' (B/ri/. Up. IV, 4, 19). And, again, by those passages which negative all change on the part of the Self; compare, for instance, 'This great unborn Self, undecaying, undying, immortal, fearless is indeed Brahman' (B/ri/. Up. IV, 24).--Moreover, if the doctrine of general identity were not true, those who are desirous of release could not be in the possession of irrefutable knowledge, and there would be no possibility of any matter being well settled; while yet the knowledge of which the Self is the object is declared to be irrefutable and to satisfy all desire, and Scripture speaks of those, 'Who have well ascertained the object of the knowledge of the Vedânta' (Mu. Up. III, 2, 6). Compare also the passage, 'What trouble, what sorrow can there be to him who has once beheld that unity?' (I/s/. Up. 7.)--And Sm/ri/ti also represents the mind of him who contemplates the Self as steady (Bha. Gî. II, 54).

As therefore the individual soul and the highest Self differ in name only, it being a settled matter that perfect knowledge has for its object the absolute oneness of the two; it is senseless to insist (as some do) on a plurality of Selfs, and to maintain that the individual soul is different from the highest Self, and the highest Self from the individual soul. For the Self is indeed called by many different names, but it is one only. Nor does the passage, 'He who knows Brahman which is real, knowledge, infinite, as hidden in the cave' (Taitt. Up. II, 1), refer to some one cave (different from the abode of the individual soul)[249]. And that nobody else but Brahman is hidden in the cave we know from a subsequent passage, viz. 'Having sent forth he entered into it' (Taitt. Up. II, 6), according to which the creator only entered into the created beings.--Those who insist on the distinction of the individual and the highest Self oppose themselves to the true sense of the Vedânta-texts, stand thereby in the way of perfect knowledge, which is the door to perfect beatitude, and groundlessly assume release to be something effected, and therefore non-eternal[250]. (And if they attempt to show that moksha, although effected, is eternal) they involve themselves in a conflict with sound logic.

23. (Brahman is) the material cause also, on account of (this view) not being in conflict with the promissory statements and the illustrative instances.

It has been said that, as practical religious duty has to be enquired into because it is the cause of an increase of happiness, so Brahman has to be enquired into because it is the cause of absolute beatitude. And Brahman has been defined as that from which there proceed the origination, sustentation, and retractation of this world. Now as this definition comprises alike the relation of substantial causality in which clay and gold, for instance, stand to golden ornaments and earthen pots, and the relation of operative causality in which the potter and the goldsmith stand to the things mentioned; a doubt arises to which of these two kinds the causality of Brahman belongs.