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Adhyaya I: Pada I: Sutras 13-19, read aloud

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Vedanta-Sutras Part I · 32 of 103

Adhyaya I: Pada I: Sutras 13-19

To this reasoning we make the following reply:--By the Self consisting of bliss we have to understand the highest Self, 'on account of repetition.' For the word 'bliss' is repeatedly applied to the highest Self. So Taitt. Up. II, 7, where, after the clause 'That is flavour'--which refers back to the Self consisting of bliss, and declares it to be of the nature of flavour--we read, 'For only after having perceived flavour can any one perceive delight. Who could breathe, who could breathe forth if that Bliss existed not in the ether (of the heart)? For he alone causes blessedness;' and again, II, 8, 'Now this is an examination of Bliss;' 'He reaches that Self consisting of Bliss;' and again, II, 9, 'He who knows the Bliss of Brahman fears nothing;' and in addition, 'He understood that Bliss is Brahman' (III, 6). And in another scriptural passage also (Bri. Up. III, 9, 28), 'Knowledge and bliss is Brahman,' we see the word 'bliss' applied just to Brahman. As, therefore, the word 'bliss' is repeatedly used with reference to Brahman, we conclude that the Self consisting of bliss is Brahman also. The objection that the Self consisting of bliss can only denote the secondary Self (the Samsârin), because it forms a link in a series of secondary Selfs, beginning with the one consisting of food, is of no force, for the reason that the Self consisting of bliss is the innermost of all.

The Sâstra, wishing to convey information about the primary Self, adapts itself to common notions, in so far as it at first refers to the body consisting of food, which, although not the Self, is by very obtuse people identified with it; it then proceeds from the body to another Self, which has the same shape with the preceding one, just as the statue possesses the form of the mould into which the molten brass had been poured; then, again, to another one, always at first representing the Non-Self as the Self, for the purpose of easier comprehension; and it finally teaches that the innermost Self 1, which consists of bliss, is the real Self.

Just as when a man, desirous of pointing out the star Arundhatî to another man, at first points to several stars which are not Arundhatî as being Arundhatî, while only the star pointed out in the end is the real Arundhatî; so here also the Self consisting of bliss is the real Self on account of its being the innermost (i.e. the last). Nor can any weight be allowed to the objection that the attribution of joy and so on, as head, &c., cannot possibly refer to the real Self; for this attribution is due to the immediately preceding limiting condition (viz. the Self consisting of understanding, the so-called vigñânakosa), and does not really belong to the real Self.

The possession of a bodily nature also is ascribed to the Self of bliss, only because it is represented as a link in the chain of bodies which begins with the Self consisting of food, and is not ascribed to it in the same direct sense in which it is predicated of the transmigrating Self. Hence the Self consisting of bliss is the highest Brahman.

Footnotes 66:1 After which no other Self is mentioned.

13. If (it be objected that the term ânandamaya, consisting of bliss, can) not (denote the highest Self) on account of its being a word denoting a modification

(or product); (we declare the objection to be) not (valid) on account of abundance, (the idea of which may be expressed by the affix maya.)

Here the pûrvapakshin raises the objection that the word ânandamaya (consisting of bliss) cannot denote the highest Self.--Why?--Because the word ânandamaya is understood to denote something different from the original word (i.e. the word ânanda without the derivative affix maya), viz. a modification; according to the received sense of the affix maya. 'Ânandamaya' therefore denotes a modification, just as annamaya (consisting of food) and similar words do.

This objection is, however, not valid, because 'maya' is also used in the sense of abundance, i.e. denotes that where there is abundance of what the original word expresses. So, for instance, the phrase 'the sacrifice is annamaya' means 'the sacrifice is abounding in food' (not 'is some modification or product of food'). Thus here Brahman also, as abounding in bliss, is called ânandamaya. That Brahman does abound in bliss follows from the passage (Taitt. Up. II, 8), where, after the bliss of each of the different classes of beings, beginning with man, has been declared to be a hundred times greater than the bliss of the immediately preceding class, the bliss of Brahman is finally proclaimed to be absolutely supreme. Maya therefore denotes abundance.

14. And because he is declared to be the cause of it, (i.e. of bliss; therefore maya is to be taken as denoting abundance.)

Maya must be understood to denote abundance, for that reason also that Scripture declares Brahman to be the cause of bliss, 'For he alone causes bliss' (Taitt. Up. II, 7). For he who causes bliss must himself abound in bliss; just as we infer in ordinary life, that a man who enriches others must himself possess abundant wealth. As, therefore, maya may be taken to mean 'abundant,' the Self consisting of bliss is the highest Self.

15. Moreover (the ânandamaya is Brahman because)

the same (Brahman) which had been referred to in the mantra is sung, (i.e. proclaimed in the Brâhmana passage as the ânandamaya.)

The Self, consisting of joy, is the highest Brahman for the following reason also 1. On the introductory words 'he who knows Brahman attains the highest' (Taitt. Up. II, 1), there follows a mantra proclaiming that Brahman, which forms the general topic of the chapter, possesses the qualities of true existence, intelligence, infinity; after that it is said that from Brahman there sprang at first the ether and then all other moving and non-moving things, and that, entering into the beings which it had emitted, Brahman stays in the recess, inmost of all; thereupon, for its better comprehension, the series of the different Selfs ('different from this is the inner Self,' &c.) are enumerated, and then finally the same Brahman which the mantra had proclaimed, is again proclaimed in the passage under discussion, 'different from this is the other inner Self, which consists of bliss.' To assume that a mantra and the Brâhmana passage belonging to it have the same sense is only proper, on account of the absence of contradiction (which results therefrom); for otherwise we should be driven to the unwelcome inference that the text drops the topic once started, and turns to an altogether new subject.

Nor is there mentioned a further inner Self different from the Self consisting of bliss, as in the case of the Self consisting of food, &c. 2 On the same (i.e. the Self consisting of bliss) is founded, 'This same knowledge of Bhrigu and Varuna; he understood that bliss is Brahman' (Taitt. Up. III, 6). Therefore the Self consisting of bliss is the highest Self.

Footnotes 68:1 The previous proofs were founded on linga; the argument which is now propounded is founded on prakarana.

68:2 While, in the case of the Selfs consisting of food and so on, a further inner Self is duly mentioned each time. It cannot, therefore, be concluded that the Selfs consisting of food, &c., are likewise identical with the highest Self referred to in the mantra.

16. (The Self consisting of bliss is the highest Self,) not the other (i.e. the individual Soul), on account of the impossibility (of the latter assumption).

And for the following reason also the Self consisting of bliss is the highest Self only, not the other, i.e. the one which is other than the Lord, i.e. the transmigrating individual soul. The personal soul cannot be denoted by the term 'the one consisting of bliss.' Why? On account of the impossibility. For Scripture says, with reference to the Self consisting of bliss, 'He wished, may I be many, may I grow forth. He brooded over himself. After he had thus brooded, he sent forth whatever there is.' Here, the desire arising before the origination of a body, &c., the non-separation of the effects created from the creator, and the creation of all effects whatever, cannot possibly belong to any Self different from the highest Self.

17. And on account of the declaration of the difference (of the two, the ânandamaya cannot be the transmigrating soul).

The Self consisting of bliss cannot be identical with the transmigrating soul, for that reason also that in the section treating of the Self of bliss, the individual soul and the Self of bliss are distinctly represented as different; Taitt. Up. II, 7, 'It (i.e. the Self consisting of bliss) is a flavour; for only after perceiving a flavour can this (soul) perceive bliss.' For he who perceives cannot be that which is perceived.--But, it may be asked, if he who perceives or attains cannot be that which is perceived or attained, how about the following Sruti- and Smriti-passages, 'The Self is to be sought;' 'Nothing higher is known than the attainment of the Self 1?'--This objection, we reply, is legitimate (from the point of view of absolute truth). Yet we see that in ordinary life, the Self, which in reality is never anything but the Self, is, owing to non-comprehension of the truth, identified with the Non-Self, i.e. the body and so on; whereby it becomes possible to speak of the Self in so far as it is identified with the body, and so on, as something not searched for but to be searched for, not heard but to be heard, not seized but to be seized, not perceived but to be perceived, not known but to be known, and the like. Scripture, on the other hand, denies, in such passages as 'there is no other seer but he' (Bri. Up. III, 7, 23), that there is in reality any seer or hearer different from the all-knowing highest Lord. (Nor can it be said that the Lord is unreal because he is identical with the unreal individual soul; for) 1 the Lord differs from the soul (vigñânâtman) which is embodied, acts and enjoys, and is the product of Nescience, in the same way as the real juggler who stands on the ground differs from the illusive juggler, who, holding in his hand a shield and a sword, climbs up to the sky by means of a rope; or as the free unlimited ether differs from the ether of a jar, which is determined by its limiting adjunct, (viz. the jar.) With reference to this fictitious difference of the highest Self and the individual Self, the two last Sûtras have been propounded.

Footnotes 69:1 Yadi labdhâ na labdhavyah katham tarhi paramâtmano vastuto #bhinnena gîvâtmanâ paramâtmâ labhyata ity arthah. Bhâmatî.

70:1 Yathâ paramesvarâd bhinno gîvâtmâ drashtâ na bhavaty evam gîvâtmano#pi drashtur na bhinnah paramesvara iti, gîvasyânirvâkyatve paramesvaro#py anirvâkyah syâd ity ata âha paramesvaras tv avidyâkalpitâd iti. Ânanda Giri.

18. And on account of desire (being mentioned as belonging to the ânandamaya) no regard is to be had to what is inferred, (i.e. to the pradhâna inferred by the Sânkhyas.)

Since in the passage 'he desired, may I be many, may I grow forth,' which occurs in the chapter treating of the ânandamaya (Taitt. Up. II, 6), the quality of feeling desire is mentioned, that which is inferred, i.e. the non-intelligent pradhâna assumed by the Sânkhyas, cannot be regarded as being the Self consisting of bliss and the cause of the world. Although the opinion that the pradhâna is the cause of the world, has already been refuted in the Sûtra I, 1, 5, it is here, where a favourable opportunity presents itself, refuted for a second time on the basis of the scriptural passage about the cause of the world feeling desire, for the purpose of showing the uniformity of view (of all scriptural passages).

19. And, moreover, it (i.e. Scripture) teaches the joining of this (i.e. the individual soul) with that, (i.e. the Self consisting of bliss), on that (being fully known).