The System of the Vedanta according to Badarayana's Brahma-Sutras and Cankara's Commentary c7.s3.t4: 4. Incidental Remark on the Destruction of the World
The System of the Vedânta according to Bâdarâyana's Brahma-Sûtras and Çankara's Commentary c7.s3.t4
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4. Incidental Remark on the Destruction of the World
c7.s3.t4.1
WE must assume that, in the periodical re-absorption of the world in Brahman, the elements, in the same way as they have emerged from one another, are withdrawn again into one another in reverse order; for so experience teaches us, as, for example, in a staircase, coming down is the reverse of going up (p. 637, 5); therefore, as the vessel becomes clay again, and the ice, water (p. 637, 6), so also the dissolution of the elements takes place in such a manner that the less subtle goes back to that which is finer, the more remote effect returns everywhere into the nearer (p. 637, 9), for it is not right to assume that the effect continues when its cause is destroyed (p. 638, 4).
c7.s3.t4.2
At the end of the Kalpa, therefore, the earth becomes water again; water, fire; fire, air; air becomes Âkâça, and Âkâça re-enters Brahman. This view is likely to throw some light on the scientific motive of the teaching of the gradual evolution and absorption of the elements, as to which we have no other information: the observation that solids dissolve in water, that water turns into steam through heat, that the flames of fire flicker out into the air (Chând. 4, 3, 1: *yadâ vâ' agnir udvâyati, vâyum eva api-eti*), air, according to the altitude, rarifies more and more into empty space, might lead us to the gradual progression of the dissolution of the world, and by inversion to its opposite, the creation of the world.⁹⁷
c7.s3.t4.3
⁹⁷ A classification of the elements (with the omission of Âkâça), according to their greater or lesser density, and corresponding perceptibility, is indicated p. 536, 7: "the earth, as capable of being smelt, "tasted, seen, felt, is gross (*sthûla*); water, as being tasted, seen, and "felt, is subtle (*sûkshma*); fire, as being seen and felt, is more subtle "(*sûkshmatara*); the air, as only to be felt, is most subtle (*sûkshmatama*)." As a rule, the Indians add to these a fifth, and still more subtle element, Âkâça, with the quality of audibility (also possessed by the other four). Cf. Aristotle, *de sensu* 2, p. 438 B, 17 ff.: φανερὸν ὡς δεῖ τοῦτον τὸν τρόπον ἀποδιδόναι καὶ προσάπτειν ἕκαστον τῶν αἰσθητηρίων ἑνὶ τῶν στοι- χείων. τοῦ μὲν ὄμματος τὸ ὁρατικὸν ὕδατος ὑποληπτέον, ἀέρος δὲ τὸ τῶν ψόφων αἰσθητικόν, πυρὸς δὲ τὴν ὄσφρησιν,—τὸ δ'ἀπτικὸν γῆς, τὸ δὲ
Cites (1)
- Chāndogyopaniṣad — Sanskrit