In spite of the conclusion arrived at there may remain a suspicion that
here and there in the Upanishads texts are to be met with which aim at
setting forth the soul as maintained in Kapila's system, and that hence
there is no room for a being different from the individual soul and
called Lord. This suspicion the Sûtra undertakes to remove, in connexion
with the Maitreyi-brâhmana, in the Brihadaranyaka. There we read 'Verily,
a husband is dear, not for the love of the husband, but for the love of
the Self a husband is dear, and so on. Everything is dear, not for the
love of everything, but for the love of the Self everything is dear. The
Self should be seen, should be heard, should be reflected on, should be
meditated upon. When the Self has been seen, heard, reflected upon,
meditated upon, then all this is known' (Bri. Up. IV, 5, 6).--Here the
doubt arises whether the Self enjoined in this passage as the object of
seeing, &c., be the soul as held by the Sânkhyas, or the Supreme Lord,
all-knowing, capable of realising all his purposes, and so on. The
Pûrvapakshin upholds the former alternative. For, he says, the beginning
no less than the middle and the concluding part of the section conveys
the idea of the individual soul only. In the beginning the individual
soul only is meant, as appears from the connexion of the Self with
husband, wife, children, wealth, cattle, and so on. This is confirmed by
the middle part of the section where the Self is said to be connected
with origination and destruction, 'a mass of knowledge, he having risen
from these elements vanishes again into them. When he has departed there
is no more consciousness.' And in the end we have 'whereby should he
know the knower'; where we again recognise the knowing subject, i.e. the
individual soul, not the Lord. We thus conclude that the whole text is
meant to set forth the soul as held by the Sânkhyas.--But in the
beginning there is a clause, viz. 'There is no hope of immortality by
wealth,' which shows that the whole section is meant to instruct us as
to the means of immortality; how then can it be meant to set forth the
individual soul only?--You state the very reason proving that the text
is concerned with the individual soul only! For according to the Sânkhya-
system immortality is obtained through the cognition of the true nature
of the soul viewed as free from all erroneous imputation to itself of
the attributes of non-sentient matter; and the text therefore makes it
its task to set forth, for the purpose of immortality, the essential
nature of the soul free from all connexion with Prakriti, 'the _Self_
should be heard,' and so on. And as the souls dissociated from Prakriti
are all of a uniform nature, all souls are known through the knowledge
of the soul free from Prakriti, and the text therefore rightly says that
through the Self being known everything is known. And as the essential
nature of the Self is of one and the same kind, viz. knowledge or
intelligence, in all beings from gods down to plants, the text rightly
asserts the unity of the Self 'that Self is all this'; and denies all
otherness from the Self, on the ground of the characteristic attributes
of gods and so on really being of the nature of the Not-self, 'he is
abandoned by everything,' &c. The clause, 'For where there is duality as
it were,' which denies plurality, intimates that the plurality
introduced into the homogeneous Self by the different forms--such as of
gods, and so on--assumed by Prakriti, is false. And there is also no
objection to the teaching that 'the Rig-veda and so on are breathed
forth from that great being (i.e. Prakriti); for the origination of the
world is caused by the soul in its quality as ruler of Prakriti.--It
thus being ascertained that the whole Maitreyî-brâhmana is concerned
with the soul in the Sânkhya sense, we, according to the principle of
the unity of purport of all Vedânta-texts, conclude that they all treat
of the Sânkhya soul only, and that hence the cause of the world is to be
found not in a so-called Lord but in Prakriti ruled and guided by the
soul.
This primâ facie view is set aside by the Sûtra. The whole text refers
to the Supreme Lord only; for on this supposition only a satisfactory
connexion of the parts of the text can be made out. On being told by
Yâjñavalkya that there is no hope of immortality through wealth,
Maitreyî expresses her slight regard for wealth and all such things as
do not help to immortality, and asks to be instructed as to the means of
immortality only ('What should I do with that by which I do not become
immortal? What my lord knows tell that clearly to me'). Now the Self
which Yâjñavalkya, responding to her requests, points out to her as the
proper object of knowledge, can be none other than the highest Self; for
other scriptural texts clearly teach that the only means of reaching
immortality is to know the Supreme Person--'Having known him thus man
passes beyond death'; 'Knowing him thus he becomes immortal here, there
is no other path to go' (Svet. Up. III, 8). The knowledge of the true
nature of the individual soul which obtains immortality, and is a mere
manifestation of the power of the Supreme Person, must be held to be
useful towards the cognition of the Supreme Person who brings about
Release, but is not in itself instrumental towards such Release; the
being the knowledge of which the text declares to be the means of
immortality is therefore the highest Self only. Again, the causal power
with regard to the entire world which is expressed in the passage, 'from
that great Being there were breathed forth the Rig veda,' &c., cannot
possibly belong to the mere individual soul which in its state of
bondage is under the influence of karman and in the state of release has
nothing to do with the world; it can in fact belong to the Supreme
Person only. Again, what the text says as to everything being known by
the knowledge of one thing ('By the seeing indeed of the Self,' &c.) is
possible only in the case of a Supreme Self which constitutes the Self
of all. What the Pûrvapakshin said as to everything being known through
the cognition of the one individual soul, since all individual souls are
of the same type--this also cannot be upheld; for as long as there is a
knowledge of the soul only and not also of the world of non-sentient
things, there is no knowledge of everything. And when the text
enumerates different things ('this Brahman class, this Kshatra class,'
&c.), and then concludes 'all this is that Self'--where the 'this' denotes
the entire Universe of animate and inanimate beings as known through
Perception, Inference, and so on--universal unity such as declared here
is possible only through a highest Self which is the Self of all. It is
not, on the other hand, possible that what the word 'this' denotes, i.e.
the whole world of intelligent and non-intelligent creatures, should be
one with the personal soul as long as it remains what it is, whether
connected with or disassociated from non-sentient matter. In the same
spirit the passage, 'All things abandon him who views all things
elsewhere than in the Self,' finds fault with him who views anything
apart from the universal Self. The qualities also which in the earlier
Maitreyî-brâhmana (II, 4, 12) are predicated of the being under
discussion, viz. greatness, endlessness, unlimitedness, cannot belong to
any one else but the highest Self. That Self therefore is the topic of
the Brâhmana.
We further demur to our antagonist's maintaining that the entire
Brâhmana treats of the individual soul because that soul is at the
outset represented as the object of enquiry, this being inferred from
its connexion with husband, wife, wealth, &c. For if the clause 'for the
love (literally, _for the _desire) of the Self refers to the individual
Self, we cannot help connecting (as, in fact, we must do in any case)
that Self with the Self referred to in the subsequent clause, 'the Self
indeed is to be seen,' &c.; the connexion having to be conceived in that
way that the information given in the former clause somehow subserves
the cognition of the Self enjoined in the latter clause. 'For the desire
of the Self would then mean 'for the attainment of the objects desired
by the Self.' But if it is first said that husband, wife, &c., are dear
because they fulfil the wishes of the individual Self, it could hardly
be said further on that the nature of that Self must be enquired into;
for what, in the circumstances of the case, naturally is to be enquired
into and searched for are the dear objects but not the true nature of
him to whom those objects are dear, apart from the objects themselves.
It would certainly be somewhat senseless to declare that since husband,
wife, &c., are dear because they fulfil the desires of the individual
soul, therefore, setting aside those dear objects, we must enquire into
the true nature of that soul apart from all the objects of its desire.
On the contrary, it having been declared that husband, wife, &c., are
dear not on account of husband, wife, &c., but on account of the Self,
they should not be dropped, but included in the further investigation,
just because they subserve the Self. And should our opponent (in order
to avoid the difficulty of establishing a satisfactory connexion between
the different clauses) maintain that the clause, 'but everything is dear
for the love of the Self,' is not connected with the following clause,
'the Self is to be seen,' &c., we point out that this would break the
whole connexion of the Brahmâna. And if we allowed such a break, we
should then be unable to point out what is the use of the earlier part
of the Brahmâna. We must therefore attempt to explain the connexion in
such a way as to make it clear why all search for dear objects--husband,
wife, children, wealth, &c.--should be abandoned and the Self only
should be searched for. This explanation is as follows. After having
stated that wealth, and so on, are no means to obtain immortality which
consists in permanent absolute bliss, the text declares that the
pleasant experiences which we derive from wealth, husband, wife, &c..
and which are not of a permanent nature and always alloyed with a great
deal of pain, are caused not by wealth, husband, wife, &c., themselves,
but rather by the highest Self whose nature is absolute bliss. He
therefore who being himself of the nature of perfect bliss causes other
beings and things also to be the abodes of partial bliss, he--the
highest Self--is to be constituted the object of knowledge. The clauses,
'not for the wish of the husband a husband is dear,' &c., therefore must
be understood as follows--a husband, a wife, a son, &c., are not dear to
us in consequence of a wish or purpose on their part, 'may I, for my own
end or advantage be dear to him,' but they are dear to us for the wish
of the Self, i.e. to the end that there may be accomplished the desire
of the highest Self--which desire aims at the devotee obtaining what is
dear to him. For the highest Self pleased with the works of his devotees
imparts to different things such dearness, i.e. joy-giving quality as
corresponds to those works, that 'dearness' being bound in each case to
a definite place, time, nature and degree. This is in accordance with
the scriptural text, 'For he alone bestows bliss' (Taitt. Up. II, 7).
Things are not dear, or the contrary, to us by themselves, but only in
so far as the highest Self makes them such. Compare the text, 'The same
thing which erst gave us delight later on becomes the source of grief;
and what was the cause of wrath afterwards tends to peace. Hence there
is nothing that in itself is of the nature either of pleasure or of pain.'
But, another view of the meaning of the text is proposed, even if the
Self in the clause 'for the desire of the Self' were accepted as
denoting the individual Self, yet the clause 'the Self must be seen'
would refer to the highest Self only. For in that case also the sense
would be as follows--because the possession of husband, wife, and other
so-called dear things is aimed at by a person to whom they are dear, not
with a view of bringing about what is desired by them (viz. husband,
wife, &c.), but rather to the end of bringing about what is desired by
himself; therefore that being which is, to the individual soul,
absolutely and unlimitedly dear, viz. the highest Self, must be
constituted the sole object of cognition, not such objects as husband,
wife, wealth, &c., the nature of which depends on various external
circumstances and the possession of which gives rise either to limited
pleasure alloyed with pain or to mere pain.--But against this we remark
that as, in the section under discussion, the words designating the
individual Self denote the highest Self also, [FOOTNOTE 391:1], the term
'Self' in both clauses, 'For the desire of the Self' and 'The Self is to
be seen,' really refers to one and the same being (viz. the highest
Self), and the interpretation thus agrees with the one given above.--In
order to prove the tenet that words denoting the individual soul at the
same time denote the highest Self, by means of arguments made use of by
other teachers also, the Sûtrakâra sets forth the two following Sûtras.
20. (It is) a mark indicating that the promissory statement is proved;
thus Âsmarathya thinks.
According to the teacher Âsmarathya the circumstance that terms denoting
the individual soul are used to denote Brahman is a mark enabling us to
infer that the promissory declaration according to which through the
knowledge of one thing everything is known is well established. If the
individual soul were not identical with Brahman in so far as it is the
effect of Brahman, then the knowledge of the soul--being something
distinct from Brahman--would not follow from the knowledge of the
highest Self. There are the texts declaring the oneness of Brahman
previous to creation, such as 'the Self only was this in the beginning'
(Ait. Âr. II, 4, 1, 1), and on the other hand those texts which declare
that the souls spring from and again are merged in Brahman; such as 'As
from a blazing fire sparks being like unto fire fly forth a thousandfold,
thus are various beings brought forth from the Imperishable, and return
thither also' (Mu. Up. II, 1, 1). These two sets of texts together make
us apprehend that the souls are one with Brahman in so far as they are
its effects. On this ground a word denoting the individual soul denotes
the highest Self as well.
[FOOTNOTE 391:1. If it be insisted upon that the Self in 'for the desire
of the Self' is the individual Self, we point out that terms denoting
the individual Self at the same time denote the highest Self also. This
tenet of his Râmânuja considers to be set forth and legitimately proved
in Sûtra 23, while Sûtras 21 and 22 although advocating the right
principle fail to assign valid arguments.]