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The System of the Vedanta according to Badarayana's Brahma-Sutras and Cankara's Commentary c7.s3.t1: 1. General

The System of the Vedânta according to Bâdarâyana's Brahma-Sûtras and Çankara's Commentary c7.s3.t1

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1. General

c7.s3.t1.1

Two passages of the Upanishads, which we now give, are the main standards for the ideas of the creation of the world.⁹⁶

c7.s3.t1.2

⁹⁶ A third important passage, *Aitareya-Up.* 1, 1, is only touched upon incidentally in 3, 3, 16—17, and plays no further part in the system. We give the beginning of this passage here, for the sake of comparison: "Truly, this world was Âtman alone in the beginning; there was "naught else there to open the eyes. He conceived the idea: 'I will now "create worlds.' Then he created these worlds; [they are:] the floods, "the rays, death, the waters [*Çankara* reads p. 871, 8 *mara*, *âpas*]. Yonder "is the flood, beyond the heavens; heaven is its support; the rays are the "atmosphere; death is the earth; underneath are the waters."

c7.s3.t1.3

1) *Taittirîya-Upanishad* 2, 1: "Truly from this Âtman the "Âkâça came forth; from the Âkâça, the wind; from the wind, "fire; from fire, water; from water, the earth; from the earth, "plants; from plants, nourishment; from nourishment, seed; "from seed, man."

c7.s3.t1.4

2) *Chândogya-Upanishad* 6, 2, 2—3, 2: "Existent, alone, dear "one, was this in the beginning, one alone and without a second. "It conceived the idea (*aikshata*): 'I will become many, I will "propagate myself'; so it created fire (*tejas*).—This fire con- "ceived the idea: 'I will become many, I will propagate my- "self'; so it created water. Therefore, when a man is hot "and sweats, from the heat arises water.—This water con- "ceived the idea: 'I will become many, I will propagate my- "self'; so it created food. Therefore, when it rains, much "food arises, for from water arises the nourishment that man "eats.—In truth, these beings have three sorts of seeds (i. e., "origins), those born from the egg, those born alive, and those “born from the germ. That deity conceived the idea: ‘Verily, “I will enter into these three deities (fire, water, food), with “this living Self [the individual soul], and spread forth into “names and forms; and I will make each one of them three-“fold.’—Then that deity entered into these three deities, with “this living Self, and spread forth names and forms; and each “one of them it made threefold” [of this, later].

c7.s3.t1.5

As we see, in the first place five elements, Âkâça, air, fire, water, and earth, are mentioned, but in the second, only the last three. Our authors detailed discussion of the absence of contradiction in this, because in the second, Âkâça and air must be supplied from the first, may very well be omitted, since they are wholly exegetical in character. This, however, occasions a controversy of considerable interest, concerning the origin of Âkâça. For Âkâça, usually translated ether, is not so much this, as all-permeating, all-present space,—as may be understood from the popular expression, quoted for other purposes on p. 609, 7: *âkâçam kuru*, “make room,” *âkâço jâtaḥ*, “room has been made”; but still it is space, as something corporeal, as an element;—a conception that is not far from the ideas of all those which take space to be something self-existent (that is, independent of our intellect) and therefore real. In this sense, the Indian thinkers make it the medium of sound (e. g. p. 557, 14), which therefore they did not recognise as a vibratory movement of the air, and, in consequence, the element of air receives a more concrete meaning, approaching the idea of wind. Of this material apprehension of space, Çaṅkara (p. 558, 1) objects against the Buddhists, who define Âkâça as purely negative, as “the absence of hindrances” (*âvaraṇa-abhâva*), that, in that case, there could be no Âkâça in the space taken up by a body, a flying bird, for example; so that we must recognise in the Âkâça not the absence of hindrances, but that reality, through which the absence of hindrances is constituted, literally: characterised (*tad vastu-bhûtam, yena âvaraṇa-abhâvo viçishyate*),—all this in reality comes back to the verbal contention as to whether a negative can still be called real, and it clearly shows that the conception of the Âkâça wavers between that of space, and something material. It has the same character in the following controversy with Kaṇāda, who correctly recognizes the heterogeneity of Ākāça and the elements, and as a consequence, places Ākāça as a connecting link between corporeal nature and the power of nature manifesting itself therein (Brahman).

Cites (3)