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The System of the Vedanta according to Badarayana's Brahma-Sutras and Cankara's Commentary c7.s3.t5: 5. Organic Nature

The System of the Vedânta according to Bâdarâyana's Brahma-Sûtras and Çankara's Commentary c7.s3.t5

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5. Organic Nature

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The creation of the world, properly speaking, which, as it appears, is to be thought of as a disk,⁹⁸ concludes with the creation of inanimate nature. For in organic nature, quite a new principle comes before us: it is the soul, which is incarnate in all the thousand phenomena of life, in all forms of gods, men, animals, and plants. It is true that souls also are an emanation from Brahman, from whom they, according to the Upanishads (for example Mund. 2, 1, 1, translated above p. 131 ff.; Kaush. 3, 3. 4, 20. Bṛih. 2, 1, 20) have arisen as the sparks from the fire, and into which they return in the same manner; but neither their origination from Brahman, nor their return to him, is understood by our system in the strict sense of the word. For the soul exists together with its organs (Prâṇas) and the "subtle body," from eternity—and, unless liberation is reached, to eternity; its entrance into Brahman in deep sleep, death, and at the dissolution of the world, takes place in such a manner that its seed remains, from which it proceeds again unchanged, with its organs. Of this later.

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⁹⁸ jagad-vimbam p. 488, 11. 489, 3. 490, 7.—The following expressions nâkasya priṣṭhe (frequent in the Veda, for example, Muṇḍ. 1, 2, 10; cf. Plato, Phaedrus, p. 247, C: ἐπὶ τῷ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ νώτῳ, and paro divo jyotir dîpyate viṣvataḥ priṣṭheshu (Chând. 3, 13, 7, translated above p. 169) seem to point to the idea of a sphere or hemisphere.

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By embodied souls, we are to understand all living beings (bhûtâni, more precisely [in contradistinction to the mahâ-bhûtâni or elements p. 140, 13] prâṇinaḥ p. 300, 5. 303, 4), therefore not only all gods, men, and animals, but also plants (therefore the expressions: brahmâdi-sthâvarânta p. 61, 11; brahmâdi-stambaparyanta p. 604, 2). Therefore plants (sthâvara) are also, as on p. 774, 5 it is expressly acknowledged, places of enjoyment (or suffering), they also have a living soul (kshetrajña p. 772, 5; jîva p. 773, 3), which has entered into

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γευστικὸν εἶδός τι ἁφῆς ἐστιν.—It should be noted that, while the Indians place fire between water and air, the Greeks, on the other hand, place air between water and fire.

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them in consequence of impure deeds (p. 774, 6), and they are sensible of enjoyment and pain (p. 772, 4), in which, however, the souls that return from the moon and stay for a while in plants as guests take no part. If the plant is cut, crushed, or cooked, the plant-soul dwelling in it passes out (*pravasati*), like every soul, when its body is destroyed (p. 773, 13 ff.). Plants must be in part endowed with perception, for, without it, the wandering of the lotus-flower from one pond to another, and the climbing of trees by creepers cannot be explained (p. 478, 9); for, as is often affirmed: without perception (*cetanâ*) there is no movement (*pravritti*).—It is true that the plant-world, as the immovable (*sthâvara*), is generally contrasted with the animal-world, as the movable (*jangama*) (p. 769, 4. 113, 1. 118, 17. 178, 5. 642, 1. 687, 4); it may serve as characteristic of the latter, that the cow (p. 507, 14) is said to have perception of, and love for, its calf, as also the goose (*hansa*) can distinguish both components in a mixture of milk and water, while we cannot (p. 799, 3); for the rest, in regard to the difference between animal and human perception, we are confined to what the passages translated in note 34, p. 57 above offer us.—It seems strange that p. 491, 7 to the gods is assigned a condition of infinite enjoyment, to man a mixed state, and to the animals, "infinite suffering." For the rest, such a conception could only be formed where the height of pleasure is to be measured by the degree of intelligence, and where, consequently, intellectual enjoyments are esteemed as the highest.⁹⁹

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⁹⁹ The argument on p. 102, 13 also rests on this view: if the (unconscious) primordial substance of the Sânkhyas were the place of the liberated, liberation would be a misfortune.

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We find a classification of organic beings 3, 1, 20—21, where they (as in the Ait. Up. 3, 3 p. 243) are divided according to their origin into
(1) *udbhijja*, born from a germ (plants),
(2) *svedaja*, born of sweat (damp heat, *sveda*, for which Bâdarâyana has the singular word *samçoka*), for example, vermin, (3) aṇḍaja, born of the egg,
(4) jarāyuja, born of the womb 100 (literally, from the Chorion).

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The two last classes originate by procreation, the two first, without it (p. 768, 10). The passage from the Chândogya-Upanishad, which we gave in the introduction to our chapter above p. 230, exhibits only three classes, for it joins the two first together, as if both came forth from germs, the one from earth, the other from water (p. 769, 3); yet the separation is justified, for the first class embraces immovable, the second movable beings (p. 769, 5).

Cites (4)