The System of the Vedanta according to Badarayana's Brahma-Sutras and Cankara's Commentary c5.s6.t2.2

c5.s6.t2.2

In accordance with what has been said, the metaphysics of the Vedânta also has two forms, a theological, exoteric, and a philosophical, esoteric form; both are present in the work which we have to analyse, running parallel, and being present in all the five provinces of the Vedânta teaching, namely, the theology, cosmology, psychology, the doctrine of transmigration, and that of liberation; they stand in a continuous contradiction which is necessitated by the nature of the matter. But the great difficulty for the philosophic understanding of the Brahmasûtras lies in the fact, that neither in the text nor in the commentary are the two conceptions clearly separated from each other, but rather meet us everywhere interwoven with each other, in such sort that the fundamental texture of the whole consists of a representation of the exoteric, or, as we may also call it (with an extension of the conception, whose justification will be given in what follows) the lower doctrine (*aparâ vidyâ*), which, however, is penetrated in every province by the esoteric or higher doctrine (*parâ vidyâ*), standing in contradiction to it, a relation which compels us to justify our general view here at the outset.