And again—
"That Supreme Spirit, Arjuna, is attainable by faith unwavering."
But devotion (or faith) is a kind of cognition which admits no other motive than the illimitable beatitude, and is free from all other desires; and the attainment of this devotion is by discrimination and other means. As is said by the author of the Vákya: Attainment thereof results from discrimination (viveka), exemption (vimoka), practice (abhyása), observance (kriyá), excellence (kalyáṇa), freedom from despondency (anavasáda), satisfaction (anuddharsha), according to the equivalence (of the definition), and the explication (of these terms). Of these means, discrimination is purity of nature, resultant from eating undefiled food, and the explication (of discrimination) is From purity of diet, purity of understanding, and by purity of understanding the unintermittent reminiscence. Exemption is non-attachment to sensuous desires; the explication being, Let the quietist meditate. Practice is reiteration; and of this a traditionary explication is quoted (from the Bhagavad-gítá) by (Rámánuja) the author of the commentary: For ever modified by the modes thereof. Observance is the performance of rites enjoined in revelation and tradition according to one's ability; the explication being (the Vedic text), He who has performed rites is the best of those that know the supreme. The excellences are veracity, integrity, clemency, charity (alms-giving), and the like; the explication being, It is attained by veracity. Freedom from despondency is the contrary of dejection; the explication being, This soul is not attained by the faint-hearted. Satisfaction is the contentment which arises from the contrary of dejection; the explication being, Quiescent, self-subdued. It has thus been shown that by the devotion of one in whom the darkness has been dispelled by the grace of the Supreme Spirit, propitiated by certain rites and observances, which devotion is meditation transformed into a presentative manifestation of soul, without ulterior motive, as incessantly and illimitably desired, the sphere of the Supreme Spirit (Vaikuṇṭha) is attained. Thus Yámuna says: Attainable by the final and absolute devotion of faith in one internally purified by both (works and knowledge); that is, in one whose internal organ is rectified by the devotion of works and knowledge.
In anticipation of the inquiry, But what absolute is to be desired to be known? the definition is given (in the second aphorism). From which the genesis, and so forth, of this. The genesis, and so forth, the creation (emanation), sustentation, and retractation (of the universe). The purport of the aphorism is that the emanation, sustentation, and retractation of this universe, inconceivably multiform in its structure, and interspersed with souls, from Brahmá to a tuft of grass, of determinate place, time, and fruition, is from this same universal Lord, whose essence is contrary to all qualities which should be escaped from, of illimitable excellences, such as indefeasible volition, and of innumerable auspicious attributes, omniscient, and omnipotent.
In anticipation of the further inquiry, What proof is there of an absolute of this nature? It is stated that the system of institutes itself is the evidence (in the third aphorism): Because it has its source from the system. To have its source from the system is to be that whereof the cause or evidence is the system. The system, then, is the source (or evidence) of the absolute, as being the cause of knowing the self, which is the cause of knowing the absolute. Nor is the suspicion possible that the absolute may be reached by some other form of evidence. For perception can have no conversancy about the absolute since it is supersensible. Nor can inference, for the illation, the ocean, and the rest, must have a maker, because it is an effect like a water-pot, is worth about as much as a rotten pumpkin. It is evinced that it is such texts as, Whence also these elements, that prove the existence of the absolute thus described.
Though the absolute (it may be objected) be unsusceptible of any other kind of proof, the system, did it not refer to activity and cessation of activity, could not posit the absolute aforesaid. To avoid by anticipation any queries on this point, it is stated (in the fourth aphorism): But that is from the construction. This is intended to exclude the doubt anticipated. The evidence, then, of the system is the only evidence that can be given of the absolute. Why? Because of the construction, that is because the absolute, that is, the highest end for man, is construed as the subject (of the first aphorism, viz., Then thence the absolute is to be desired to be known). Moreover, a sentence which has nothing to do either with activity or with cessation of activity is not therefore void of purpose, for we observe that sentences merely declaratory of the nature of things, such as, A son is born to you, This is not a snake, convey a purpose, viz., the cessation of joy or of fear. Thus there is nothing unaccounted for. We have here given only a general indication. The details may be learnt from the original (viz., Rámánuja's Bháshya on the Vedánta aphorisms); we therefore decline a further treatment, apprehensive of prolixity; and thus all is clear.[110]
A. E. G.
FOOTNOTES:
[107] Cf. "The argument in defence of the Maxim of Contradiction is that it is a postulate employed in all the particular statements as to matters of daily experience that a man understands and acts upon when heard from his neighbours; a postulate such that, if you deny it, no speech is either significant or trustworthy to inform and guide those who hear it. You may cite innumerable examples both of speech and action in the detail of life, which the Herakleitean must go through like other persons, and when, if he proceeded upon his own theory, he could neither give nor receive information by speech, nor ground any action upon the beliefs which he declares to co-exist in his own mind. Accordingly the Herakleitean Kratylus (so Aristotle says) renounced the use of affirmative speech, and simply pointed with his finger."—Grote's Aristotle, vol. ii. pp. 297, 298.
[108] Cf. the dictum of Herakleitus: Making worlds is Zeus's pastime; and that of Plato (Laws, Book vii. p. 803): Man is made to be the plaything of God.