The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja / Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48

by Unknown

6. If it be said that (the word 'seeing') has a secondary (figurative) meaning; we deny this, on account of the word 'Self' (being applied to the cause of the world).

The contention that, because, in passages standing close by, the word 'seeing' is used in a secondary sense, the 'seeing' predicated of the Sat ('Being') is also to be taken in a secondary sense, viz. as denoting (not real thought but) a certain condition previous to creation, cannot be upheld; for in other texts met with in the same section (viz. 'All this has that for its Self; that is the True, that is the Self', Ch. Up. VI, 8, 7), that which first had been spoken of as Sat is called the 'Self'. The designation 'Self' which in this passage is applied to the Sat in its relation to the entire world, sentient or non-sentient, is in no way appropriate to the Pradhâna. We therefore conclude that, as the highest Self is the Self of fire, water, and earth also, the words fire, &c. (in the passages stating that fire, &c. thought) denote the highest Self only. This conclusion agrees with the text 'Let me enter into these three beings with this living Self, and evolve names and forms', for this text implies that fire, water, &c. possess substantial being and definite names only through the highest Self having entered into them. The thought ascribed in the text to fire, water, &c. hence is thought in the proper sense, and the hypothesis that, owing to its connexion with these latter texts, the thought predicated of 'Being' ('it thought,' &c. ) should be thought in a figurative sense only thus lapses altogether.

The next following Sûtra confirms the same view.

7. Because release is taught of him who takes his stand on it.

Svetaketu, who is desirous of final release, is at first—by means of the clause 'Thou art that'—instructed to meditate on himself as having his Self in that which truly is; and thereupon the passage 'for him there is delay' only as long as 'I shall not be released, then I shall be united' teaches that for a man taking his stand upon that teaching there will be Release, i.e. union with Brahman—which is delayed only until this mortal body falls away. If, on the other hand, the text would teach that the non-intelligent Pradhâna is the general cause, it could not possibly teach that meditation on this Pradhâna being a man's Self is the means towards his Release. A man taking his stand on such meditation rather would on death be united with a non-sentient principle, according to the scriptural saying, 'According as his thought is in this world, so will he be when he has departed this life' (Ch. Up. III, 14, 1). And Scripture, which is more loving than even a thousand parents, cannot possibly teach such union with the Non-sentient, which is acknowledged to be the cause of all the assaults of suffering in its threefold form. Moreover, those who hold the theory of the Pradhâna being the cause of the world do not themselves maintain that he who takes his stand upon the Pradhâna attains final release.

The Pradhâna is not the cause of the world for the following reason also:

8. And because there is no statement of its having to be set aside.

If the word 'Sat' denoted the Pradhâna as the cause of the world, we should expect the text to teach that the idea of having his Self in that 'Sat' should be set aside by Svetaketu as desirous of Release; for that idea would be contrary to Release. So far from teaching this, the text, however, directly inculcates that notion in the words 'Thou art that.'— The next Sûtra adds a further reason.

9. And on account of the contradiction of the initial statement.

The Pradhâna's being the cause of the world would imply a contradiction of the initial statement, viz. that through the knowledge of one thing all things are to be known. Now, on the principle of the non-difference of cause and effect, this initial statement can only be fulfilled in that way that through the knowledge of the 'Sat', which is the cause, there is known the entire world, whether sentient or non-sentient, which constitutes the effect. But if the Pradhâna were the cause, the aggregate of sentient beings could not be known through it—for sentient beings are not the effect of a non-sentient principle, and there would thus arise a contradiction.—The next Sûtra supplies a further reason.