The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 748 pages of information about The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya.

The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 748 pages of information about The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya.
the person in the eye, in the clause, ’the name of the one is the name of the other.’  Now, entire freedom from sin is attributed in Scripture to the highest Self only; so, for instance (Ch.  Up.  VIII, 7, 1), ’The Self which is free from sin,’ &c.  Then, again, there is the passage, ’He is Rik, he is Saman, Uktha, Yajus, Brahman,’ which declares the person in the eye to be the Self of the Rik, Saman, and so on; which is possible only if that person is the Lord who, as being the cause of all, is to be considered as the Self of all.  Moreover, the text, after having stated in succession Rik and Saman to have earth and fire for their Self with reference to the Devas, and, again, speech and breath with reference to the body, continues, ‘Rik and Saman are his joints,’ with reference to the Devas, and ‘the joints of the one are the joints of the other,’ with reference to the body.  Now this statement also can be made only with regard to that which is the Self of all.  Further, the passage, ’Therefore all who sing to the Vina sing him, and from him also they obtain wealth,’ shows that the being spoken of is the sole topic of all worldly songs; which again holds true of the highest Lord only.  That absolute command over the objects of worldly desires (as displayed, for instance, in the bestowal of wealth) entitles us to infer that the Lord is meant, appears also from the following passage of the Bhagavad-gita (X, 41), ’Whatever being there is possessing power, glory, or strength, know it to be produced from a portion of my energy[116].’  To the objection that the statements about bodily shape contained in the clauses, ‘With a beard bright as gold,’ &c., cannot refer to the highest Lord, we reply that the highest Lord also may, when he pleases, assume a bodily shape formed of Maya, in order to gratify thereby his devout worshippers.  Thus Sm/ri/ti also says, ’That thou seest me, O Narada, is the Maya emitted by me; do not then look on me as endowed with the qualities of all beings.’  We have further to note that expressions such as, ’That which is without sound, without touch, without form, without decay,’ are made use of where instruction is given about the nature of the highest Lord in so far as he is devoid of all qualities; while passages such as the following one, ’He to whom belong all works, all desires, all sweet odours and tastes’ (Ch.  Up.  III, 14, 2), which represent the highest Lord as the object of devotion, speak of him, who is the cause of everything, as possessing some of the qualities of his effects.  Analogously he may be spoken of, in the passage under discussion, as having a beard bright as gold and so on.  With reference to the objection that the highest Lord cannot be meant because an abode is spoken of, we remark that, for the purposes of devout meditation, a special abode may be assigned to Brahman, although it abides in its own glory only; for as Brahman is, like ether, all-pervading, it may be viewed as being within the Self of all beings.  The statement, finally, about the limitation of Brahman’s might, which depends on the distinction of what belongs to the gods and what to the body, has likewise reference to devout meditation only.  From all this it follows that the being which Scripture states to be within the eye and the sun is the highest Lord.

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.