Brahma Sutras (Nimbarka commentary)

by Roma Bose | 1940 | 290,526 words

English translation of the Brahma-sutra 1.4.5, including the commentary of Nimbarka and sub-commentary of Srinivasa known as Vedanta-parijata-saurabha and Vedanta-kaustubha resepctively. Also included are the comparative views of important philosophies, viz., from Shankara, Ramanuja, Shrikantha, Bhaskara and Baladeva.

Brahma-Sūtra 1.4.5

English of translation of Brahmasutra 1.4.5 by Roma Bose:

“If it be objected that (scripture) speaks (of pradhāna as an object to be known), (we reply:) no, for the intelligent soul (is the object to be known), on account of the topic.”

Nimbārka’s commentary (Vedānta-pārijāta-saurabha):

If it be objected that the text: ‘By discerning him, who is without beginning, without end, higher than the great (mahat) eternal, one is delivered from the jaws of death’ (Kaṭha 3.15[1]), “speaks” of pradhāna as an object to be known,—

(We reply:) ‘No’. “The intelligent soul”, i.e. the Supreme Soul, is here indicated as the object to be known, He being the “topic”.

Śrīnivāsa’s commentary (Vedānta-kaustubha)

It may be objected: The following text “speaks” of pradhāna as an object to be known, viz.: ‘What is without sound, without touch, without form, unchangeable, likewise without taste, constant, and without odour, without beginning, without end, higher than the great (mahat), eternal, by discerning that, one is delivered from the jaws of death’ (Kaṭha 3.15). It means that ‘by discerning’, i.e. by knowing, pradhāna,—the cause of and higher than ‘the great’, i.e. than the principle mahat, the second principle called buddhi, and an effect of pradhāna,—one is delivered from the jaws of death, i.e. from the jaws of mundane existence.

(We reply:) “No”, “for the intelligent soul” alone is indicated here as the object to be discerned. Why? “On account of the topic”, i.e. because the Supreme Soul is the topic here, as evident from the texts: ‘That supreme place of Viṣṇu’ (Kaṭha 3.9), ‘Nothing is higher than the Person’ (Kaṭha 3.11), ‘The soul, hidden in all beings, is not manifest’ (Kaṭha 3.12) and so on. And by the phrase: ‘Higher than the great (mahat)’, the superiority of the Supreme Soul to the individual soul,—mentioned previously in the passage: ‘Higher than buddhi is the great soul’ (Kaṭha 3.10),—is denoted.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Quoted by Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, Bhāskara, Śrīkaṇṭha and Baladeva.

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