SECOND ADHYÂYA.
The first adhyâya has proved that all the Vedânta-texts unanimously teach that there is only one cause of the world, viz. Brahman, whose nature is intelligence, and that there exists no scriptural passage which can be used to establish systems opposed to the Vedânta, more especially the Sâ@nkhya system. The task of the two first pâdas of the second adhyâya is to rebut any objections which may be raised against the Vedânta doctrine on purely speculative grounds, apart from scriptural authority, and to show, again on purely speculative grounds, that none of the systems irreconcilable with the Vedânta can be satisfactorily established.
PÂDA I.
Adhikarana I refutes the Sâ@nkhya objection that the acceptation of the Vedânta system involves the rejection of the Sâ@nkhya doctrine which after all constitutes a part of Smriti, and as such has claims on consideration.—To accept the Sâ@nkhya-smriti, the Vedântin replies, would compel us to reject other Smritis, such as the Manu-smriti, which are opposed to the Sâ@nkhya doctrine. The conflicting claims of Smritis can be settled only on the ground of the Veda, and there can be no doubt that the Veda does not confirm the Sâ@nkhya-smriti, but rather those Smritis which teach the origination of the world from an intelligent primary cause.
Adhik. II (3) extends the same line of argumentation to the Yoga-smriti.
Adhik. III (4-11) shows that Brahman, although of the nature of intelligence, yet may be the cause of the non-intelligent material world, and that it is not contaminated by the qualities of the world when the latter is refunded into Brahman. For ordinary experience teaches us that like does not always spring from like, and that the qualities of effected things when the latter are refunded into their causes—as when golden ornaments, for instance, are melted and thereby become simple gold again—do not continue to exist in those causes.—Here also the argumentation is specially directed against the Sâ@nkhyas, who, in order to account for the materiality and the various imperfections of the world, think it necessary to assume a causal substance participating in the same characteristics.
Adhik. IV (12) points out that the line of reasoning followed in the preceding adhikarana is valid also against other theories, such as the atomistic doctrine.
The one Sûtra (13) constituting Adhik. V teaches, according to Sa@nkara, that although the enjoying souls as well as the objects of fruition are in reality nothing but Brahman, and on that account identical, yet the two sets may practically be held apart, just as in ordinary life we hold apart, and distinguish as separate individual things, the waves, ripples, and foam of the sea, although at the bottom waves, ripples, and foam are all of them identical as being neither more nor less than sea-water.—The Srî-bhâshya gives a totally different interpretation of the Sûtra, according to which the latter has nothing whatever to do with the eventual non-distinction of enjoying souls and objects to be enjoyed. Translated according to Râmânuja's view, the Sûtra runs as follows: 'If non-distinction (of the Lord and the individual souls) is said to result from the circumstance of (the Lord himself) becoming an enjoyer (a soul), we refute this objection by instances from every-day experience.' That is to say: If it be maintained that from our doctrine previously expounded, according to which this world springs from the Lord and constitutes his body, it follows that the Lord, as an embodied being, is not essentially different from other souls, and subject to fruition as they are; we reply that the Lord's having a body does not involve his being subject to fruition, not any more than in ordinary life a king, although himself an embodied being, is affected by the experiences of pleasure and pain which his servants have to undergo.—The construction which Râmânuja puts on the Sûtra is not repugnant either to the words of the Sûtra or to the context in which the latter stands, and that it rests on earlier authority appears from a quotation made by Râmànuja from the Dramidabhâshyakâra[13].
Adhik. VI (14-20) treats of the non-difference of the effect from the cause; a Vedânta doctrine which is defended by its adherents against the Vaiseshikas according to whom the effect is something different from the cause.—The divergent views of Sa@nkara and Râmânuja on this important point have been sufficiently illustrated in the general sketch of the two systems.
Adhik. VII (21-23) refutes the objection that, from the Vedic passages insisting on the identity of the Lord and the individual soul, it follows that the Lord must be like the individual soul the cause of evil, and that hence the entire doctrine of an all-powerful and all-wise Lord being the cause of the world has to be rejected. For, the Sûtrakîra remarks, the creative principle of the world is additional to, i.e. other than, the individual soul, the difference of the two being distinctly declared by Scripture.—The way in which the three Sûtras constituting this adhikarana are treated by Sa@nkara on the one hand and Râmânuja on the other is characteristic. Râmânuja throughout simply follows the words of the Sûtras, of which Sûtra 21 formulates the objection based on such texts as 'Thou art that,' while Sûtra 22 replies that Brahman is different from the soul, since that is expressly declared by Scripture. Sa@nkara, on the other hand, sees himself obliged to add that the difference of the two, plainly maintained in Sûtra 22, is not real, but due to the soul's fictitious limiting adjuncts.