The System of the Vedanta according to Badarayana's Brahma-Sutras and Cankara's Commentary c5.s5.t2.1

c5.s5.t2.1

Like the Pûrva-mîmânsâ, the Vedânta also accepts six canons of knowledge, according to Colebrooke (loc. cit. p. 330), who appeals for support to the (modern) Vedântaparibhâshâ. As far as our Vedânta-sûtras are concerned, there is, neither in the text nor in the Commentary, any discussion of the Pramânas at all; on the contrary they are everywhere presupposed as well known, and set aside as inadmissible for the metaphysics of the Vedânta, and in reality a fundamental account of the fact that metaphysics attains its contents only through a right use of the natural means of knowledge, is very difficult, and presupposes a greater ripeness of thought than we find in the Vedânta, which helps itself out of the difficulty by the short cut of substituting a theological for the philosophical means of knowledge, as we shall now further show.