The System of the Vedanta according to Badarayana's Brahma-Sutras and Cankara's Commentary c5.s6.t2.3
The System of the Vedânta according to Bâdarâyana's Brahma-Sûtras and Çankara's Commentary c5.s6.t2.3
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As is shown by the analysis of contents at the conclusion of our first chapter, the doctrine of the Vedânta consists properly in a richly coloured picture of the world on a mythological ground. The first part contains, in Adhyâya I, the theology, which on the basis of seven times four passages of the Upanishads, discusses the essence of the Brahman, its relation to the world as creator, ruler and destroyer, its relation to the soul, and its various names and attributes. This is followed, in Adhyâya II, by the cosmology which is concerned with the relation of the world to the Brahman as cause, its gradual evolution from and re-absorption in it, and, from II, 3, 15 on, the psychology, in which are thoroughly discussed the nature of the soul and its organs, its relation to God, to the body, and to its own deeds. In Adhyâya III comes first the doctrine of transmigration, then a supplement to the psychology (III, 2, 1—10), another to the theology (III, 2, 11—41); the rest of the Adhyâya contains a miscellaneous assemblage of discussions, for the most part exegetic in character, as the chief content of which we can, in any case, with Çankara (p. 1049, 3), consider the teaching of the means (sâdhana) to attain the higher and lower doctrine, that is the knowledge and worship of the Brahman.
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For the most part these discussions deal with the strange question whether certain passages of the Veda are to be comprehended in one “Vidyâ,” or to be separated, a question which has a meaning only for the lower doctrine, with its aim of worship. Finally, the conclusion of the work, Adhyâya IV, contains the eschatology; it sketches in detail the departure of the soul after death, and how some souls follow the way of the Fathers (pitriyâna) to a new incarnation, while, on the contrary, others, the worshippers of the Brahman, are led along the way of the gods (devayâna) higher and higher upwards to the Brahman, “whence there is no return”—according to the Upanishads, but not without further conditions, according to the reasoning of our system: for this Brahman is only the “lower” Brahman, that is, as considered as possessing attributes (guṇa), it is the object of worship, and not of “perfect knowledge” (samyagdarçanam); only after this latter, that is, the esoteric doctrine, is imparted to the pious in the world of Brahman, is he also liberated; until then, although he is in the world of Brahman, and a partaker of Lordship (aiçvaryam), “his darkness is not yet driven away” (p. 1154, 9), “his ignorance not yet destroyed” (p.
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1133, 15), that is, he possesses only the lower doctrine (aparâ vidyâ), whose content consists of all that has hitherto been mentioned, not the opposed higher doctrine, the parâ vidyâ or samyagdarçanam, that is, the pure philosophic, esoteric doctrine, which, in every part of this picture of the world with its empiric colouring, crops up in contradiction with it, and whose results, according to the metaphysical standpoint which we occupy, we may find strange, or admirable. In the department of Theology it teaches that the Brahman is not thus or thus, but altogether without attributes (guṇa), distinctions (viṣesha) and limitations (upâdhi), and therefore in no way capable of being defined or conceived. And this Brahman, devoid of all limitation, is the only being, outside which nothing is; therefore, in the department of Cosmology, there can be as little question of the origin of the world as of its existence, but only of there being neither anything different (nânâ) from the Brahman, nor any plurality of things (prapañca), and that the world extended in names and forms is non-existent (avastu), is only a glamour (mâyâ) which Brahman, as master-magician (mâyâvin), projects (prasârayati), as the dreamer projects dream forms (p. 432, 8). In the same way all Psychology falls away, after the saying “tat tvam asi” (that thou art), is comprehended according to which the soul of each human being is not an emanation, not a part of the Brahman, but fully and completely the Brahman.
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For him who knows this, there is no more migration of the soul, nor even liberation; for he is already liberated; the continued existence of the world and of his own body appears to him only as an illusion, the appearance of which he cannot remove, but which cannot further deceive him, till the time when, after the decease of the body, he wanders not forth, as the others, but remains where he is and what he is and eternally was,—the first principle of all things, “the originally eternal, pure, free Brahman.”