[773] Such attempts must have begun early. The Maitrâyana Upanishad (II. 3) talks of Sarvopanishadvidyâ, the science of all the Upanishads.
[774] See above, p. 207 ff.
[775] The same distinction occurs in the works of Meister Eckhart († 1327 A.D.) who in many ways approximates to Indian thought, both Buddhist and Vedântist. He makes a distinction between the Godhead and God. The Godhead is the revealer but unrevealed: it is described as "wordless" (Yâjnavalkya's neti, neti), "the nameless nothing," "the immoveable rest." But God is the manifestation of the Godhead, the uttered word. "All that is in the Godhead is one. Therefore we can say nothing. He is above all names, above all nature. God works, so doeth not the Godhead. Therein are they distinguished, in working and in not working. The end of all things is the hidden darkness of the eternal Godhead, unknown and never to be known." (Quoted by Rufus Jones, Studies in Mystical Religion, p. 225.) It may be doubted if Śankara's distinction between the Higher and Lower Brahman is to be found in the Upanishads but it is probably the best means of harmonizing the discrepancies in those works which Indian theologians feel bound to explain away.
[776] Vedânta sûtras, II. 1. 32-3, and Śaṅkara's commentary, S.B.E. vol. XXXIV. pp. 356-7. Râmânuja holds a similar view and it is very common in India, e.g. Vishṇu Pur. I. chap. 2.
[777] See too a remarkable passage in his comment on Brahma-sûtras, II. 1. 23. "As soon as the consciousness of non-difference arises in us, the transmigratory state of the individual soul and the creative quality of Brahman vanish at once, the whole phenomenon of plurality which springs from wrong knowledge being sublated by perfect knowledge and what becomes then of the creation and the faults of not doing what is beneficial and the like?"
[778] Although Śaṅkara's commentary is a piece of severe ratiocination, especially in its controversial parts, yet he holds that the knowledge of Brahman depends not on reasoning but on scripture and intuition. "The presentation before the mind of the Highest Self is effected by meditation and devotion." Brah. Sut. III. 2. 24. See too his comments on I. 1. 2 and II. 1. 11.
[779] See Sukhtankar, Teachings of Vedânta according to Râmânuja, pp. 17-19. Walleser, Der aeltere Vedânta, and De la Vallée Poussin in J.R.A.S. 1910, p. 129.
[780] This term is generally rendered by qualified, that is not absolute, Monism. But South Indian scholars give a slightly different explanation and maintain that it is equivalent to Viśishṭayor advaitam or the identity of the two qualified (viśishṭa) conditions of Brahman. Brahman is qualified by cit and acit, souls and matter, which stand to him in the relation of attributes. The two conditions are Kâryâvasthâ or period of cosmic manifestation in which cit and acit are manifest and Karaṇâvasthâ or period of cosmic dissolution, when they exist only in a subtle state within Brahman. These two conditions are not different (advaitam). See Srinivas Iyengar, J.R.A.S. 1912, p. 1073 and also Sri Râmânujâcárya: His Philosophy by Rajagopalacharyar.
[781] Compare the phrase of Keats in a letter quoted by Bosanquet, Gifford Lectures for 1912, p. 66. "As various as the lives of men are, so various become their souls and thus does God make individual beings, souls, identical souls of the sparks of his own essence."
[782] This tenet is justified by Bṛihad Aran. Up. III. 3 ff. which is a great text for Râmânuja's school. "He who dwells in the earth (water, etc.) and within the earth (or, is different from the earth) whom the earth knows not, whose body the earth is, who rules the earth within, he is thyself, the ruler within, the immortal."