Vedanta-Sutras Part I · 51 of 103

Adhyaya I: Pada III: Sutras 9-11

But—it may be objected—we meet here neither with a question, such as, ‘Is there something more than vital air?’ nor with an answer, such as, ‘That and that is more than vital air.’ How, then, can it be said that the information about the bhûman is given subsequently to the information about the vital air?—Moreover, we see that the circumstance of being an ativâdin, which is exclusively connected with the vital air, is referred to in the subsequent passage (viz. ‘But in reality he is an ativâdin who makes a statement surpassing (the preceding statements) by means of the True’).

There is thus no information additional to the information about the vital air.—To this objection we reply that it is impossible to maintain that the passage last quoted merely continues the discussion of the quality of being an ativâdin, as connected with the knowledge of the vital air; since the clause, ‘He who makes a statement surpassing, &c. by means of the True,’ states a specification.—But, the objector resumes, this very statement of a specification may be explained as referring to the vital air. If you ask how, we refer you to an analogous case.

If somebody says, ‘This Agnihotrin speaks the truth,’ the meaning is not that the quality of being an Agnihotrin depends on speaking the truth; that quality rather depends on the (regular performance of the) agnihotra only, and speaking the truth is mentioned merely as a special attribute of that special Agnihotrin. So our passage also (‘But in reality he is an ativâdin who makes a statement, &c. by means of the True’) does not intimate that the quality of being an ativâdin depends on speaking the truth, but merely expresses that speaking the truth is a special attribute of him who knows the vital air; while the quality of being an ativâdin must be considered to depend on the knowledge of the vital air.—This objection we rebut by the remark that it involves an abandonment of the direct meaning of the sacred text. For from the text, as it stands, we understand that the quality of being an ativâdin depends on speaking the truth; the sense being: An ativâdin is he who is an ativâdin by means of the True. The passage does not in anyway contain a eulogisation of the knowledge of the vital air. It could be connected with the latter only on the ground of general subject-matter (prakarana) 1; which would involve an abandonment of the direct meaning of the text in favour of prakarana 2.—Moreover, the particle but (‘But in reality he is,’ &c.), whose purport is to separate (what follows) from the subject-matter of what precedes, would not agree (with the prâna explanation).

The following passage also, ‘But we must desire to know the True’ (VII, 16), which presupposes a new effort, shows that a new topic is going to be entered upon.—For these reasons we have to consider the statement about the ativâdin in the same light as we should consider the remark—made in a conversation which previously had turned on the praise of those who study one Veda—that he who studies the four Vedas is a great Brâhmana; a remark which we should understand to be laudatory of persons different from those who study one Veda, i.e. of those who study all the four Vedas.

Nor is there any reason to assume that a new topic can be introduced in the form of question and answer only; for that the matter propounded forms a new topic is sufficiently clear from the circumstance that no connexion can be established between it and the preceding topic. The succession of topics in the chapter under discussion is as follows: Nârada at first listens to the instruction which Sanatkumâra gives him about various matters, the last of which is Prâna, and then becomes silent. Thereupon Sanatkumâra explains to him spontaneously (without being asked) that the quality of being an ativâdin, if merely based on the knowledge of the vital air—which knowledge has for its object an unreal product,—is devoid of substance, and that he only is an ativâdin who is such by means of the True. By the term ‘the True’ there is meant the highest Brahman; for Brahman is the Real, and it is called the ‘True’ in another scriptural passage also, viz. Taitt. Up. II, 1, ‘The True, knowledge, infinite is Brahman.’ Nârada, thus enlightened, starts a new line of enquiry (‘Might I, Sir, become an ativâdin by the True?’) and Sanatkumâra then leads him, by a series of instrumental steps, beginning with understanding, up to the knowledge of bhûman.

We therefrom conclude that the bhûman is that very True whose explanation had been promised in addition to the (knowledge of the) vital air. We thus see that the instruction about the bhûman is additional to the instruction about the vital air, and bhûman must therefore mean the highest Self, which is different from the vital air. With this interpretation the initial statement, according to which the enquiry into the Self forms the general subject-matter, agrees perfectly well. The assumption, on the other hand (made by the pûrvapakshin), that by the Self we have here to understand the vital air is indefensible. For, in the first place, Self-hood does not belong to the vital air in any non-figurative sense.

In the second place, cessation of grief cannot take place apart from the knowledge of the highest Self; for, as another scriptural passage declares, ‘There is no other path to go’ (Svet. Up. VI, 15). Moreover, after we have read at the outset, ‘Do, Sir, lead me over to the other side of grief’ (Kh. Up. VII, 1, 3), we meet with the following concluding words (VII, 26, 2), ‘To him, after his faults had been rubbed out, the venerable Sanatkumâra showed the other side of darkness.’ The term ‘darkness’ here denotes Nescience, the cause of grief, and so on.—Moreover, if the instruction terminated with the vital air, it would not be said of the latter that it rests on something else. But the brâhmana (Kh. Up.

VII, 36, 1) does say, ‘The vital air springs from the Self.’ Nor can it be objected against this last argument that the concluding part of the chapter may refer to the highest Self, while, all the same, the bhûman (mentioned in an earlier part of the chapter) may be the vital air. For, from the passage (VII, 24, 1), (‘Sir, in what does the bhûman rest? In its own greatness,’ &c.), it appears that the bhûman forms the continuous topic up to the end of the chapter.—The quality of being the bhûman—which quality is plenitude—agrees, moreover, best with the highest Self, which is the cause of everything.

Footnotes 163:1 As might be the primâ facie conclusion from the particle ‘but’ introducing the sentence ‘but he in reality,’ &c.

166:1 It being maintained that the passage referred to is to be viewed in connexion with the general subject-matter of the preceding past of the chapter.

166:2 And would thus involve a violation of a fundamental principle of the Mîmâmsâ.

9.And on account of the agreement of the attributes (mentioned in the text).

The attributes, moreover, which the sacred text ascribes to the bhûman agree well with the highest Self. The passage, ‘Where one sees nothing else, hears nothing else, understands nothing else, that is the bhûman,’ gives us to understand that in the bhûman the ordinary activities of seeing and so on are absent; and that this is characteristic of the highest Self, we know from another scriptural passage, viz. ‘But when the Self only is all this, how should he see another?’ &c. (Bri. Up. IV, 5, 15). What is said about the absence of the activities of seeing and so on in the state of deep sleep (Pra. Up.

IV, 2) is said with the intention of declaring the non-attachedness of the Self, not of describing the nature of the prâna; for the highest Self (not the vital air) is the topic of that passage. The bliss also of which Scripture speaks as connected with that state is mentioned only in order to show that bliss constitutes the nature of the Self. For Scripture says (Bri. Up. IV, 3, 32), ‘This is his highest bliss. All other creatures live on a small portion of that bliss.’—The passage under discussion also (‘The bhûman is bliss. There is no bliss in that which is little (limited). The bhûman only is bliss’) by denying the reality of bliss on the part of whatever is perishable shows that Brahman only is bliss as bhûman, i.e.

in its plenitude,—Again, the passage, ‘The bhûman is immortality,’ shows that the highest cause is meant; for the immortality of all effected things is a merely relative one, and another scriptural passage says that ‘whatever is different from that (Brahman) is perishable’ (Bri. Up. III, 4, 2).—Similarly, the qualities of being the True, and of resting in its own greatness, and of being omnipresent, and of being the Self of everything which the text mentions (as belonging to the bhûman) can belong to the highest Self only, not to anything else.—By all this it is proved that the bhûman is the highest Self.

10.The Imperishable (is Brahman) on account of (its) supporting (all things) up to ether.

We read (Bri. Up. III, 8, 7; 8). ‘In what then is the ether woven, like warp and woof?—He said: O Gârgî, the Brâhmanas call this the akshara (the Imperishable). It is neither coarse nor fine,’ and so on.—Here the doubt arises whether the word ‘akshara’ means ‘syllable’ or ‘the highest Lord.’

The pûrvapakshin maintains that the word ‘akshara’ means ‘syllable’ merely, because it has, in such terms as akshara-samâmnâya, the meaning of ‘syllable;’ because we have no right to disregard the settled meaning of a word; and because another scriptural passage also (‘The syllable Om is all this,’ Kh. Up. II, 23, 4) declares a syllable, represented as the object of devotion, to be the Self of all.

To this we reply that the highest Self only is denoted by the word ‘akshara.’—Why?—Because it (the akshara) is said to support the entire aggregate of effects, from earth up to ether. For the sacred text declares at first that the entire aggregate of effects beginning with earth and differentiated by threefold time is based on ether, in which it is ‘woven like warp and woof;’ leads then (by means of the question, ‘In what then is the ether woven, like warp and woof?’) over to the akshara, and, finally, concludes with the words, ‘In that akshara then, O Gârgî, the ether is woven, like warp and woof.’—Now the attribute of supporting everything up to ether cannot be ascribed to any being but Brahman. The text (quoted from the Kh. Up.) says indeed that the syllable Om is all this, but that statement is to be understood as a mere glorification of the syllable Om considered as a means to obtain Brahman.—Therefore we take akshara to mean either ‘the Imperishable’ or ‘that which pervades;’ on the ground of either of which explanations it must be identified with the highest Brahman.

But—our opponent resumes—while we must admit that the above reasoning holds good so far that the circumstance of the akshara supporting all things up to ether is to be accepted as a proof of all effects depending on a cause, we point out that it may be employed by those also who declare the pradhâna to be the general cause. How then does the previous argumentation specially establish Brahman (to the exclusion of the pradhâna)?—The reply to this is given in the next Sûtra.

11.This (supporting can), on account of the command (attributed to the Imperishable, be the work of the highest Lord only).

The supporting of all things up to ether is the work of the highest Lord only.—Why?—On account of the command.—For the sacred text speaks of a command (‘By the command of that akshara, O Gârgî, sun and moon stand apart!’ III, 8, 9), and command can be the work of the highest Lord only, not of the non-intelligent pradhâna. For non-intelligent causes such as clay and the like are not capable of command, with reference to their effects, such as jars and the like.