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The System of the Vedanta according to Badarayana's Brahma-Sutras and Cankara's Commentary c9.s3.t2: 2. The Involution of the Organs

The System of the Vedânta according to Bâdarâyana's Brahma-Sûtras and Çankara's Commentary c9.s3.t2

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2. The Involution of the Organs

c9.s3.t2.1

Sûtras 4, 2, 1—5.

c9.s3.t2.2

¹ At death, according to the passage just quoted, speech first of all enters into *Manas* (p. 1087, 6); under speech here the remaining nine *Indriyas* (above p. 329) are included, for another passage says (*Praçna* 3, 9): “therefore, when his “splendour is extinguished, he passes to rebirth together with “his senses, which have entered into *Manas*” (p. 1089, 5). Are we now to understand by the senses, for example, speech, the sense itself or only its function (*vritti*) (p. 1087, 8)?—This question appears strange, after our author, as we saw above p. 332, has already stated p. 715, 10 that the organs (*karaṇam*)

c9.s3.t2.3

are only functions (*vritti*), as indeed we can understand under the *Indriyas*, which depart hence with the soul, naturally not the material organs, but only functions conceived as independently existent potencies. In this sense it is a matter of course that only the function (*vritti*) of the *Indriyas* enters (*sampadyate*) into Manas, while the bodily organ perishes with the body. The question here raised on the other hand, as is apparent from the way it is answered, must be understood in the sense that by *vritti* are not to be understood these functions themselves, but only their activity, and by their *sampatti* not their entering into Manas, but their complete dissolution (*pravilaya* p. 1088, 1, *upaçama* p. 1088, 4). Accordingly we must interpret the question under discussion to be: whether at death the sense organ (the *vritti*, according to p. 715, 10) attached to the soul, when it enters (*sampadyate*) into Manas, is, on this entering in, dissolved (*sampadyate*) only in its functional activity (*vritti*) or in its very essence? The answer is that only the functional activity, not the *Indriyam* perishes (*vâg-vrittir manasi sampadyate* p. 1088, 1), in the first place, because otherwise complete non-separateness (*avibhâga*) would ensue, and the condition of non-separateness, according to 4, 2, 16, belongs only to the liberated and not to others (p. 1088, 5); again, because the perception which shows how the activity of the senses dies out at death, while that of Manas (consciousness) persists for some time longer, only gives us the right to speak of an extinction of the functional activity, not of that of the agent (p. 1088, 10); finally, because a thing, according to its essence, can only enter into that from which it arose, as a pot into clay, but according to its functional activity, it can enter into something else, as for instance the functional activity of fire springs from fuel and is extinguished in water, although both are different from it (p. 1088, 14). If, notwithstanding, the passage says that speech enters into Manas, this depends on usage (*upacâra*), which does not distinguish between the action and the agent (p. 1089, 3).—The ambiguity displayed by the author in the use of these expressions *vritti* and *sampadyate* is to us unintelligible.

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2. The second act at death, according to Chând. 6, 8, 6, is that *Manas* enters into *Prâna* (as the principle of unconscious life, above p. 333 ff.). Here the same question repeats itself. One might think that *Manas* as an organ enters into *Prâna*, because it is said, in Chând. 6, 6, 5 (above p. 263), that *Manas* is formed from food, and *Prâna* from water, while again it is said (above p. 235) that food, that is, the earth, arose from water (p. 1090, 4). But here too it seems rather to be the fact that only the function (functional activity) of *Manas* is to be understood as entering (dissolving into) *Prâna*; for it is only the function of *Manas* that we can observe coming to rest (p. 1090, 9) in *Prâna* in one who falls asleep and in one desirous of liberation (cf. Kâth. 3, 13); and again we cannot conclude from the mediate (*pranâlika*, found only here as *adj.*) arising of *Manas* from *Prâna* that the former must re-enter into the latter, since otherwise it would also follow that *Manas* must dissolve itself in food, food in water, and *Prâna* in water (p. 1090, 13). Here too therefore we must understand by *Manas* only its functional activity, not the agent, since usage does not distinguish between them (p. 1091, 1).

c9.s3.t2.5

3. When further it is said in Chând. 6, 8, 6 that *Prâna* merges into heat (*tejas*), we must note that, in the first place, it enters not into heat but into the overseer (*adhyaksha*) by which is to be understood "the overseer of the cage of the "body and the organs," that is, the individual soul (*jîva*) (p. 1091, 6); the latter (*jîva*) is defined on this occasion as "self of knowledge endowed with the limitations (*upâdhi*) of "knowledge, works and previous experience" (p. 1091, 9), by which, as we shall show immediately, the moral character is to be understood. With the latter the soul seems to be more closely united than with its organs; for while these must first enter into it, the moral character clings to the soul of itself.—Even though in the successive stages of the entering in the fundamental passage Chând. 6, 8, 6, does not mention the individual soul, yet its insertion between *Prâna* and *Tejas* is justified by another scriptural passage (Brịh. 4, 3, 38, translated above p. 192) in which it is said that at death all the *Prânas* enter into the soul, and that, when the latter departs, life and with it all the organs of life,¹²⁶ depart with it (p. 1091, 12).

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¹²⁶ That the soul takes the Prâṇas with it depends on the fact that without them the soul can neither move nor enjoy in the life after death (p. 745, 5); therefore when it is said (*Bṛih.* 3, 2, 13) that the Prâṇas at death go to the Gods, the eye to the sun, the breath to the wind, etc., this is only a metaphorical (*bhâkta, gauṇa*) expression (p. 745, 1), which means that at death the Gods withdraw (p. 745, 8) their assistance from the organs (above p. 337 ff.).

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4. Only after the Prâṇas have entered into the soul which is accompanied by the moral character, does the soul enter with them into heat, by which here, as will shortly be further shown, are to be understood the other elements also, as well as heat (*tejas*), in that sublimated form, in which they constitute the seed of the body (p. 1092, 2). This absorption of the Prâṇas into the soul, of the soul into heat, does not contradict the words of the fundamental passage, according to which the Prâṇas enter into heat; for if a man goes from *Çrughna* to *Mathurâ* and from *Mathurâ* to *Pâṭaliputram*, he has thereby gone from *Çrughna* to *Pâṭaliputram* (p. 1093, 2).

Cites (4)