Vedanta-Sutras Part I · 102 of 103

Adhyaya II: Pada II: Sutras 35-39

The same difficulty would, moreover, arise with regard to the successive stages of one state of existence, infancy, youth, and old age.—But why, the Gaina may ask, should we not look upon the soul as consisting of an infinite number of parts capable of undergoing compression in a small body and dilatation in a big one?—Do you, we ask in return, admit or not admit that those countless particles of the soul may occupy the same place or not?—If you do not admit it, it follows that the infinite number of particles cannot be contained in a body of limited dimensions.—If you do admit it, it follows that, as then the space occupied by all the particles may be the space of one particle only, the extension of all the particles together will remain inconsiderable, and hence the soul be of minute size (not of the size of the body).

You have, moreover, no right to assume that a body of limited size contains an infinite number of soul particles.

Well the, the Gaina may reply, let us assume that by turns whenever the soul enters a big body some particles accede to it while some withdraw from it whenever it enters a small body.—To this hypothesis the next Sûtra furnishes a reply.

35.Nor is non-contradiction to be derived from the succession (of parts acceding to and departing from the soul), on account of the change, &c. (of the soul).

Nor can the doctrine of the soul having the same size as the body be satisfactorily established by means of the hypothesis of the successive accession and withdrawal of particles. For this hypothesis would involve the soul’s undergoing changes and the like. If the soul is continually being repleted and depleted by the successive addition and withdrawal of parts, it of course follows that it undergoes change, and if it is liable to change it follows that it is non-permanent, like the skin and similar substances. From that, again, it follows that the Gaina doctrine of bondage and release is untenable; according to which doctrine ‘the soul, which in the state of bondage is encompassed by the ogdoad of works and sunk in the ocean of samsâra, rises when its bonds are sundered, as the gourd rises to the surface of the water when it is freed from the encumbering clay 1.’—Moreover, those particles which in turns come and depart have the attributes of coming and going, and cannot, on that account, be of the nature of the Self any more than the body is. And if it be said that the Self consists of some permanently remaining parts, we remark that it would be impossible to determine which are the permanent and which the temporary parts.—We have further to ask from whence those particles originate when they accede to the soul, and into what they are merged when they detach themselves from it. They cannot spring from the material elements and re-enter the elements; for the soul is immaterial. Nor have we any means to prove the existence of some other, general or special, reservoir of soul-particles.—Moreover, on the hypothesis under discussion the soul would be of indefinite nature, as the size of the particles acceding and departing is itself indefinite.—On account of all these and similar difficulties it cannot be maintained that certain particles by turns attach themselves to, and detach themselves from, the soul.

The Sûtra may be taken in a different sense also. The preceding Sûtra has proved that the soul if of the same size as the body cannot be permanent, as its entering into bigger and smaller bodies involves its limitation. To this the Gymnosophist may be supposed to rejoin that although the soul’s size successively changes it may yet be permanent, just as the stream of water is permanent (although the water continually changes). An analogous instance would be supplied by the permanency of the stream of ideas while the individual ideas, as that of a red cloth and so on, are non-permanent.—To this rejoinder our Sûtra replies that if the stream is not real we are led back to the doctrine of a general void, and that, if it is something real, the difficulties connected with the soul’s changing, &c. present themselves and render the Gaina view impossible.

Footnotes 432:1 Cp. Sarvadarsanasamgraha translation, p. 58.

36.And on account of the permanency of the final (size of the soul) and the resulting permanency of the two (preceding sizes) there is no difference (of size, at any time).

Moreover, the Gainas themselves admit the permanency of the final size of the soul which it has in the state of release. From this it follows also that its initial size and its intervening sizes must be permanent 1, and that hence there is no difference between the three sizes. But this would involve the conclusion that the different bodies of the soul have one and the same size, and that the soul cannot enter into bigger and smaller bodies.—Or else (to explain the Sûtra in a somewhat different way) from the fact that the final size of the soul is permanent, it follows that its size in the two previous conditions also is permanent. Hence the soul must be considered as being always of the same size—whether minute or infinite—and not of the varying size of its bodies.—For this reason also the doctrine of the Arhat has to be set aside as not in any way more rational than the doctrine of Buddha.

Footnotes 433:1 The inference being that the initial and intervening sizes of the soul must be permanent because they are sizes of the soul, like its final size.

37.The Lord (cannot be the cause of the world), on account of the inappropriateness (of that doctrine).

The Sûtrakâra now applies himself to the refutation of that doctrine, according to which the Lord is the cause of the world only in so far as he is the general ruler.—But how do you know that that is the purport of the Sûtra (which speaks of the Lord ‘without any qualification’)?—From the circumstance, we reply, that the teacher himself has proved, in the previous sections of the work, that the Lord is the material cause as well as the ruler of the world. Hence, if the present Sûtra were meant to impugn the doctrine of the Lord in general, the earlier and later parts of the work would be mutually contradictory, and the Sûtrakâra would thus be in conflict with himself. We therefore must assume that the purport of the present Sûtra is to make an energetic attack on the doctrine of those who maintain that the Lord is not the material cause, but merely the ruler, i.e. the operative cause of the world; a doctrine entirely opposed to the Vedântic tenet of the unity of Brahman.

The theories about the Lord which are independent of the Vedânta are of various nature. Some taking their stand on the Sânkhya and Yoga systems assume that the Lord acts as a mere operative cause, as the ruler of the pradhâna and of the souls, and that pradhâna, soul, and Lord are of mutually different nature.—The Mâhesvaras (Saivas) maintain that the five categories, viz. effect, cause, union, ritual, the end of pain, were taught by the Lord Pasupati (Siva) to the end of breaking the bonds of the animal (i.e. the soul); Pasupati is, according to them, the Lord, the operative cause.—Similarly, the Vaiseshikas and others also teach, according to their various systems, that the Lord is somehow the operative cause of the world.

Against all these opinions the Sûtra remarks ‘the Lord, on account of the inappropriateness.’ I.e. it is not possible that the Lord as the ruler of the pradhâna and the soul should be the cause of the world, on account of the inappropriateness of that doctrine. For if the Lord is supposed to assign to the various classes of animate creatures low, intermediate, and high positions, according to his liking, it follows that he is animated by hatred, passion, and so on, is hence like one of us, and is no real Lord.

Nor can we get over this difficulty by assuming that he makes his dispositions with a view to the merit and demerit of the living beings; for that assumption would lead us to a logical see-saw, the Lord as well as the works of living beings having to be considered in turns both as acting and as acted upon. This difficulty is not removed by the consideration that the works of living beings and the resulting dispositions made by the Lord form a chain which has no beginning; for in past time as well as in the present mutual interdependence of the two took place, so that the beginningless series is like an endless chain of blind men leading other blind men.

It is, moreover, a tenet set forth by the Naiyâyikas themselves that ‘imperfections have the characteristic of being the causes of action’ (Nyâya Sûtra I, 1, 18). Experience shows that all agents, whether they be active for their own purposes or for the purposes of something else, are impelled to action by some imperfection. And even if it is admitted that an agent even when acting for some extrinsic purpose is impelled by an intrinsic motive, your doctrine remains faulty all the same; for the

Lord is no longer a Lord, even if he is actuated by intrinsic motives only (such as the desire of removing the painful feeling connected with pity).—Your doctrine is finally inappropriate for that reason also that you maintain the Lord to be a special kind of soul; for from that it follows that he must be devoid of all activity.

38.And on account of the impossibility of the connexion (of the Lord with the souls and the pradhâna).

Against the doctrine which we are at present discussing there lies the further objection that a Lord distinct from the pradhâna and the souls cannot be the ruler of the latter without being connected with them in a certain way. But of what nature is that connexion to be? It cannot be conjunction (samyoga), because the Lord, as well as the pradhâna and the souls, is of infinite extent and devoid of parts. Nor can it be inherence, since it would be impossible to define who should be the abode and who the abiding thing. Nor is it possible to assume some other connexion, the special nature of which would have to be inferred from the effect, because the relation of cause and effect is just what is not settled as yet 1.—How, then, it may be asked, do you—the Vedântins—establish the relation of cause and effect (between the Lord and the world)?—There is, we reply, no difficulty in our case, as the connexion we assume is that of identity (tâdâtmya). The adherent of Brahman, moreover, defines the nature of the cause, and so on, on the basis of Scripture, and is therefore not obliged to render his tenets throughout conformable to observation. Our adversary, on the other hand, who defines the nature of the cause and the like according to instances furnished by experience, may be expected to maintain only such doctrines as agree with experience. Nor can he put forward the claim that Scripture, because it is the production of the omniscient Lord, may be used to confirm his doctrine as well as that of the Vedântin; for that would involve him in a logical see-saw, the omniscience of the Lord being established on the doctrine of Scripture, and the authority of Scripture again being established on the omniscience of the Lord.—For all these reasons the Sânkhya-yoga hypothesis about the Lord is devoid of foundation. Other similar hypotheses which likewise are not based on the Veda are to be refuted by corresponding arguments.

Footnotes 436:1 The special nature of the connexion between the Lord and the pradhâna and the souls cannot be ascertained from the world considered as the effect of the pradhâna acted upon by the Lord; for that the world is the effect of the pradhâna is a point which the Vedântins do not accept as proved.

39.And on account of the impossibility of rulership (on the part of the Lord).