Vedanta-Sutras Part I · 68 of 103

Adhyaya I: Pada IV: Sutras 9-10

Here the advocate of the pradhâna comes again forward and maintains that the absence of scriptural authority for the pradhâna is not yet proved. For, he says, we have the following mantra (Sve. Up. IV, 5), 'There is one agâ 1, red, white, and black, producing manifold offspring of the same nature. There is one agâ who loves her and lies by her; there is another who leaves her after having enjoyed her.'--In this mantra the words 'red,' 'white,' and 'black' denote the three constituent elements of the pradhâna. Passion is called red on account of its colouring, i.e. influencing property; Goodness is called white, because it is of the nature of Light; Darkness is called black on account of its covering and obscuring property. The state of equipoise of the three constituent elements, i.e.

the pradhâna, is denoted by the attributes of its parts, and is therefore called red-white-black. It is further called agâ, i.e. unborn, because it is acknowledged to be the fundamental matter out of which everything springs, not a mere effect.--But has not the word agâ the settled meaning of she-goat?--True; but the ordinary meaning of the word cannot be accepted in this place, because true knowledge forms the general subject-matter.--That pradhâna produces many creatures participating in its three constituent elements. One unborn being loves her and lies by her, i.e. some souls, deluded by ignorance, approach her, and falsely imagining that they experience pleasure or pain, or are in a state of dulness, pass through the course of transmigratory existence.

Other souls, again, which have attained to discriminative knowledge, lose their attachment to prakriti, and leave her after having enjoyed her, i.e. after she has afforded to them enjoyment and release.--On the ground of this passage, as interpreted above, the followers of Kapila claim the authority of Scripture for their pradhâna hypothesis.

To this argumentation we reply, that the quoted mantra by no means proves the Sânkhya doctrine to be based on Scripture. That mantra, taken by itself, is not able to give additional strength to any doctrine. For, by means of some supposition or other, the terms agâ, &c. can be reconciled with any doctrine, and there is no reason for the special assertion that the Sânkhya doctrine only is meant. The case is analogous to that of the cup mentioned in the mantra, 'There is a cup having its mouth below and its bottom above' (Bri. Up. II, 2, 3). Just as it is impossible to decide on the ground of this mantra taken by itself what special cup is meant--it being possible to ascribe, somehow or other, the quality of the mouth being turned downward to any cup--; so here also there is no special quality stated, so that it is not possible to decide from the mantra itself whether the pradhâna is meant by the term agâ, or something else.--But in connexion with the mantra about the cup we have a supplementary passage from which we learn what kind of cup is meant, 'What is called the cup having its mouth below and its bottom above is this head.'--Whence, however, can we learn what special being is meant by the agâ of the Svetâsvatara-upanishad?--To this question the next Sûtra replies.

Footnotes 253:1 As the meaning of the word agâ is going to be discussed, and as the author of the Sûtras and Sankara seem to disagree as to its meaning (see later on), I prefer to leave the word untranslated in this place.--Sankara reads--and explains,--in the mantra, sarûpâh (not sarûpâm) and bhuktabhogâm, not bhuktabhogyâm.

9. But the (elements) beginning with light (are meant by the term agâ); for some read so in their text.

By the term agâ we have to understand the causal matter of the four classes of beings, which matter has sprung from the highest Lord and begins with light, i.e. comprises fire, water, and earth.--The word 'but' (in the Sûtra) gives emphasis to the assertion.--This agâ is to be considered as comprising three elementary substances, not as consisting of three gunas in the Sânkhya sense. We draw this conclusion from the fact that one sâkhâ, after having related how fire, water, and earth sprang from the highest Lord, assigns to them red colour, and so on. 'The red colour of burning fire

(agni) is the colour of the elementary fire (tegas), its white colour is the colour of water, its black colour the colour of earth,' &c. Now those three elements--fire, water, and earth--we recognise in the Svetâsvatara passage, as the words red, white, and black are common to both passages, and as these words primarily denote special colours and can be applied to the Sânkhya gunas in a secondary sense only. That passages whose sense is beyond doubt are to be used for the interpretation of doubtful passages, is a generally acknowledged rule.

As we therefore find that in the Svetâsvatara--after the general topic has been started in I, 1, 'The Brahman-students say, Is Brahman the cause?'--the text, previous to the passage under discussion, speaks of a power of the highest Lord which arranges the whole world ('the Sages devoted to meditation and concentration have seen the power belonging to God himself, hidden in its own qualities'); and as further that same power is referred to in two subsequent complementary passages ('Know then, Prakriti is Mâyâ, and the great Lord he who is affected with Mâyâ;' 'who being one only rules over every germ;' IV, 10, 11); it cannot possibly be asserted that the mantra treating of the agâ refers to some independent causal matter called pradhâna.

We rather assert, on the ground of the general subject-matter, that the mantra describes the same divine power referred to in the other passages, in which names and forms lie unevolved, and which we assume as the antecedent condition of that state of the world in which names and forms are evolved. And that divine power is represented as three-coloured, because its products, viz. fire, water, and earth, have three distinct colours.--But how can we maintain, on the ground of fire, water, and earth having three colours, that the causal matter is appropriately called a three-coloured agâ? if we consider, on the one hand, that the exterior form of the genus agâ (i.e.

goat) does not inhere in fire, water, and earth; and, on the other hand, that Scripture teaches fire, water, and earth to have been produced, so that the word agâ cannot be taken in the sense 'non-produced 1.'--To this question the next Sûtra replies.

Footnotes 255:1 Here there seems to be a certain discrepancy between the views of the Sûtra writer and Sankara. Govindânanda notes that according to the Bhâshyakrit agâ means simply mâyâ--which interpretation is based on prakarana--while, according to the Sûtra-krit, who explains agâ on the ground of the Khândogya-passage treating of the three primary elements, agâ denotes the aggregate of those three elements constituting an avântaraprakriti.--On Sankara's explanation the term agâ presents no difficulties, for mâyâ is agâ, i.e. unborn, not produced. On the explanation of the Sûtra writer, however, agâ cannot mean unborn, since the three primary elements are products. Hence we are thrown back on the rûdhi signification of agâ, according to which it means she-goat. But how can the avântara-prakriti be called a she-goat? To this question the next Sûtra replies.

10. And on account of the statement of the assumption (of a metaphor) there is nothing contrary to reason (in agâ denoting the causal matter); just as in the case of honey (denoting the sun) and similar cases.

The word agâ neither expresses that fire, water, and earth belong to the goat species, nor is it to be explained as meaning 'unborn;' it rather expresses an assumption, i.e. it intimates the assumption of the source of all beings (which source comprises fire, water, and earth), being compared to a she-goat. For as accidentally some she-goat might be partly red, partly white, partly black, and might have many young goats resembling her in colour, and as some he-goat might love her and lie by her, while some other he-goat might leave her after having enjoyed her; so the universal causal matter which is tri-coloured, because comprising fire, water, and earth, produces many inanimate and animate beings similar to itself, and is enjoyed by the souls fettered by Nescience, while it is abandoned by those souls which have attained true knowledge.--Nor must we imagine that the distinction of individual souls, which is implied in the preceding explanation, involves that reality of the multiplicity of souls which forms one of the tenets of other philosophical schools. For the purport of the passage is to intimate, not the multiplicity of souls, but the distinction of the states of bondage and release. This latter distinction is explained with reference to the multiplicity of souls as ordinarily conceived; that multiplicity, however, depends altogether on limiting adjuncts, and is the unreal product of wrong knowledge merely; as we know from scriptural passages such as, 'He is the one God hidden in all beings, all-pervading, the Self in all beings,' &c.--The words 'like the honey' (in the Sûtra) mean that just as the sun, although not being honey, is represented as honey (Kh. Up. III, 1), and speech as a cow (Bri. Up. V, 8), and the heavenly world, &c. as the fires (Bri. Up. VI, 2, 9), so here the causal matter, although not being a she-goat, is metaphorically represented as one. There is therefore nothing contrary to reason in the circumstance of the term agâ being used to denote the aggregate of fire, water, and earth.

11. (The assertion that there is scriptural authority for the pradhâna, &c. can) also not (be based) on the mention of the number (of the Sânkhya categories), on account of the diversity (of the categories) and on account of the excess (over the number of those categories).

The attempt to base the Sânkhya doctrine on the mantra speaking of the agâ having failed, the Sânkhya again comes forward and points to another mantra: 'He in whom the five "five-people" and the ether rest, him alone I believe to be the Self; I who know believe him to be Brahman' (Bri. Up. IV, 4, 17). In this mantra we have one word which expresses the number five, viz. the five-people, and then another word, viz. five, which qualifies the former; these two words together therefore convey the idea of five pentads, i.e. twenty-five. Now as many beings as the number twenty-five presupposes, just so many categories the Sânkhya system counts. Cp. Sânkhya Kârikâ, 3: 'The fundamental causal substance (i.e. the pradhâna) is not an effect. Seven (substances), viz. the Great one (Intellect), and so on, are causal substances as well as effects. Sixteen are effects. The soul is neither a causal substance nor an effect.'

As therefore the number twenty-five, which occurs in the scriptural passage quoted, clearly refers to the twenty-five categories taught in the Sânkhya-smriti, it follows that the doctrine of the pradhâna, &c. rests on a scriptural basis.