and destruction.  Vedanta however believes that even when the true knowledge has once been attained, the body may last for a while, if the individual’s previously ripened karmas demand it.  Thus the emancipated person may walk about and behave like an ordinary sage, but yet he is emancipated and can no longer acquire any new karma.  As soon as the fruits due to his ripe karmas are enjoyed and exhausted, the sage loses his body and there will never be any other birth for him, for the dawn of perfect knowledge has burnt up for him all budding karmas of beginningless previous lives, and he is no longer subject to any

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[Footnote 1:_Siddhantales’a_.]

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of the illusions subjective or objective which could make any knowledge, action, or feeling possible for him.  Such a man is called jivanmukta, i.e. emancipated while living.  For him all world-appearance has ceased.  He is the one light burning alone in himself where everything else has vanished for ever from the stage [Footnote ref 1].

Vedanta and other Indian Systems.

Vedanta is distinctly antagonistic to Nyaya, and most of its powerful dialectic criticism is generally directed against it.  S’a@nkara himself had begun it by showing contradictions and inconsistencies in many of the Nyaya conceptions, such as the theory of causation, conception of the atom, the relation of samavaya, the conception of jati, etc [Footnote ref 2].  His followers carried it to still greater lengths as is fully demonstrated by the labours of S’rihar@sa, Citsukha, Madhusudana, etc.  It was opposed to Mima@msa so far as this admitted the Nyaya-Vais’e@sika categories, but agreed with it generally as regards the prama@nas of anumana, upamiti, arthapatti, s’abda, and anupalabdhi.  It also found a great supporter in Mima@msa with its doctrine of the self-validity and self-manifesting power of knowledge.  But it differed from Mima@msa in the field of practical duties and entered into many elaborate discussions to prove that the duties of the Vedas referred only to ordinary men, whereas men of higher order had no Vedic duties to perform but were to rise above them and attain the highest knowledge, and that a man should perform the Vedic duties only so long as he was not fit for Vedanta instruction and studies.

With Sa@mkhya and Yoga the relation of Vedanta seems to be very close.  We have already seen that Vedanta had accepted all the special means of self-purification, meditation, etc., that were advocated by Yoga.  The main difference between Vedanta and Sa@mkhya was this that Sa@mkhya believed, that the stuff of which the world consisted was a reality side by side with the puru@sas.  In later times Vedanta had compromised so far with Sa@mkhya that it also sometimes described maya as being made up of sattva, rajas, and tamas.  Vedanta also held that according to these three characteristics were formed diverse modifications