The System of the Vedanta according to Badarayana's Brahma-Sutras and Cankara's Commentary c6.s7.t3: 3. Brahman as Attainment of absolute Unity

The System of the Vedânta according to Bâdarâyana's Brahma-Sûtras and Çankara's Commentary c6.s7.t3

Language: English

3. Brahman as Attainment of absolute Unity

All knowledge, which is different from its object, is limited and not free; that knowledge only is unlimited and free, which knows itself as identical with the known.—This is the fundamental thought of the Bhûma-vidyâ, the seventh section of the Chândogya-Upanishad (p. 473–527), whose chief contents are as follows.

c6.s7.t3.3

Nârada prays Sanatkumâra to teach him; and, in answer to the question: what he already knows, enumerates the four Vedas and a long series of other sciences. In the consciousness of their insufficiency, he adds: “I know, O venerable one, “the Mantras [here the whole practical theology], not the “Âtman [metaphysics]; for I have heard from those who are “like thee, that he who knows the Âtman is above sorrow; “but I, O Master, am sorrowful; lead thou me away from “sorrow!”

c6.s7.t3.4

Sanatkumâra, in his teaching, takes the following course. All, he says, that thou hast learnt, is name, greater (bhûyas) than name is speech, than speech, understanding, than this, resolve, than this, thought, than this, knowledge, than this, force, than this, food, than this, water, than this, fire, than this, space, than this, memory, than this, hope, than this the life (or the breath, *prâṇa*). "As the spokes are fastened in the nave, so all this is fastened in the life. The life prospers through the life (breath), the life (breath) gives life, gives it to life. The life is father and mother, the life is brother and sister, the life is teacher and Brahman. Therefore, when anyone roughly uses a father or mother or brother or sister or teacher or Brahman, it is said: Fie on thee! thou art a parricide, matricide, fratricide, slayer of thy sister, slayer of thy teacher, slayer of a Brahman [cf. I John III, 15 πᾶς ὁ μισῶν τὸν ἀδελφὸν αὑτοῦ ἀνθρωποκτόνος ἐστίν]; but if, after the life has fled, he pokes the same persons with the pike [on the funeral pile] and burns them up, it is not said: thou art a parricide, matricide, fratricide, slayer of thy sister, slayer of thy teacher, slayer of a Brahman: for the life only is this all.--Verily, he who thus sees and thinks and knows, he is a conqueror in speech (*ativâdin*); and if anyone should say to him: thou art a conqueror in speech! he shall avow, and not deny it."

c6.s7.t3.5

By life (*prâṇa*) in this passage is to be understood, not as elsewhere frequently and also in the Chândogya-Upanishad itself (cf. above p. 147, 164, 177, 182) the highest Brahman, but (perhaps in intentional polemic against this view) empirically "the life-principle (*prâṇa*) shaped to the complex of the subtle body, the *Prajñâtman* [Brahman, note 82] as the central principle of the body, in which the highest godhead [*Brahman*] enters to the end of evolution in name and form as the living self (as the individual soul, *jîva âtman*), like the image in the mirror."⁹⁰ The result up to this is therefore only the highest point of the empirical view of the world, from which Sanatkumâra seeks to lift his pupil to the metaphysical view, proceeding as follows:

c6.s7.t3.6

⁹⁰ Çank. on Chând. p. 505, 15. Here should be distinguished 1. that which is imaged (*brahman, âtman*), 2. the image of the mirror (*jîva*), 3. the mirror (*prâṇa*), which however are all three at bottom one in Brahman. However the sense of the above scholion is in part obscure and the translation uncertain.

c6.s7.t3.7

But he only is the true conqueror in speech, who conquers through the truth. The truth, therefore, must be investigated.

c6.s7.t3.8

Now the truth is based on knowledge, knowledge on thought, thought on faith, faith on certainty, certainty on action, action on pleasure [the inclination to do something, as determining the will].

c6.s7.t3.9

Now pleasure, [thus the speaker continues, the idea of a single satisfaction, such as is felt after an action, leading him on to that of an absolute, final satisfaction] consists only in illimitation (*bhûman*), not in the limited (*alpam*). Now what is illimitation?

c6.s7.t3.10

“When one sees no other [outside himself], hears no other, knows no other, that is illimitation; when he sees, hears, knows another, that is the limited. Illimitation is the immortal, the limited is mortal.” “But on what is it based then, Master?”—“It is based on its own greatness, or, if you will, not on greatness. For by greatness in this world one understands many cows and horses, elephants and gold, slaves and women, fields and lands. But this I mean not, for here one is always based on the other.”

c6.s7.t3.11

“But it [the illimitation] is below and above, in the west and in the east, the south and the north; it is this whole world.”

c6.s7.t3.12

“Hence follows for the consciousness of ‘I’ (*ahaṃkâra*): ‘I (*aham*) am below and above, in the west and the east, the south and the north; I am this whole world.’”

c6.s7.t3.13

“Hence follows for the soul (*âtman*): the soul is below and above, in the west and the east, the north and the south, the soul is this whole world.”

c6.s7.t3.14

“He who sees and thinks and knows thus, rejoicing in the soul, playing with it, uniting and delighting with it, he is autonomous (*svarâj*), and freedom (*kâmacâra*) is his in all worlds; but they who regard it otherwise than thus, they are heteronomous (*anyarâjan*), of transitory felicity, and unfreedom (*akâmacâra*) is theirs in all worlds.”—

c6.s7.t3.15

“Thus,” it is said in conclusion, “he shewed him, whose darkness was worn away, the shore beyond the darkness, he, the holy Sanatkumâra.”

c6.s7.t3.16

Śaṅkara’s efforts, in connection with this passage, are directed to proving that, by illimitation Brahman is to be understood, and not the previously mentioned life. For although nothing higher follows after life in the series (p. 235, 4), and who knows it is called a conqueror in speech (p. 235, 8), although the description, also, that one "sees no other outside himself," suits the life in the condition of deep sleep (p. 235, 14), as also the terms as pleasure, immortal, Âtman, could be understood of the life (p. 236), yet it is not the life; but only the highest Brahman which is to be understood by illimitation; for it is termed higher than deep sleep, that is, than the life in deep sleep (p. 237, 1) by the fact that from him who knows the life, we are directed to him "who through the truth conquers in speech" (p. 238, 10), while the first mentioned conquest is unjustified (p. 239, 8). And as the truth appears further illimitation, that is, the highest soul different from the life (p. 240, 3); for to Him alone can apply the passage concerning the destruction of sorrow (p. 240, 6), as also the phrase "the shore beyond the darkness," that is, Ignorance (p. 240, 10), and the immense greatness, which lies in the idea of illimitation, and is only applicable to the highest God as the cause of all (p. 240, 14). To it applies also the unity of subject and object, since the unity which arises in deep sleep is also to be reduced to it (p. 241, 6). Lastly, to it refers also the term pleasure, since by it no pleasure enduring for a time only (sâmaya) is to be understood (p. 241, 12); as also the expressions such as immortality, truth, being based on its own greatness, omnipresent, and all-animating (p. 241, 16).

Cites (1)

Chāndogyopaniṣad — Sanskrit