Brahma-Sūtra 2.1.20 (prima facie view)

English of translation of Brahmasutra 2.1.20 by Roma Bose:

“On account of the designation of another, there is the consequence of faults like not doing what is beneficial and the best.”

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

An objection is raised: Since on the doctrine of the causality of Brahman the individual soul is established to be Brahman in the passage: “This soul is Brahman” (Bṛhadāraṇyaka-upaniṣad 2.5.9^[1]), there result “faults like not doing what is beneficial and the rest” by reason of Brahman’s creating the world, which is an abode of all miseries.

Śrīnivāsa’s commentary (Vedānta-kaustubha)

The view that there is an absolute difference between the cause and the effect has been disposed of above. Now, since there can be no suspicion of an absolute non-difference between the Sentient Being and the non-sentient, the author is here refuting only the view of those who suppose that there is an absolute identity between Brahman and the individual soul.^[2]

It may be objected: If Brahman he the creator of the world which is the site of the three kinds of miseries, there must be the “consequence of the fault of not doing what is beneficial”. By the term “and the rest” (in the sūtra) the fault of doing what is not beneficial is understood. Why? “On account of the designation of another,” i.e. on account of the designation of the individual soul as Brahman in the passage: “‘Thou art that”’ (Chāndogya-upaniṣad 6.8.7: 6.9.4, etc.), “This soul is Brahman” (Bṛhadāraṇyaka-upaniṣad 2.5.9) and so on. The sense is that the transmigratory soul, performing good and bad deeds and undergoing threefold pains, is not other than Brahman. Hence the stated faults must result on the part of Brahman, not subject to transmigratory existence.

Comparative views of Baladeva:

This is sūtra 21 in his commentary. Like Nimbārka, Baladeva too begins a new adhikaraṇa here, but unlike Nimbārka continues it up to sūtra 33 (32 in Nimbārka). He takes this adhikaraṇa as concerned with showing that the Brahman, and not the individual soul, is the cause of the world. Thus, first, he takes this sūtra as setting forth the correct conclusion and not a prima facie view (as according to Nimbārka), thus: “There will be the consequences of faults like not doing what is beneficial and the rest from the designation of another (i.e. if the individual soul be designated as the creator of the world)”.^[2] That is, if the individual soul were the creator of the world, it would not have created a world so full of miseries. Hence, Brahman, not the individual soul, must be the creator.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Quoted by Rāmānuja and Śrīkaṇṭha.

[2]:

I.e. the author is not trying to remove the suspicion of an absolute non-difference between Brahman and the material world,—since none is so foolish as to suppose that a Sentient Being and non-sentient object may be absolutely identical—-but he is disposing only of the not unnatural belief of an absolute identity between Brahman and the individual soul.

[3]:

Govinda-bhāṣya 2.1.21, pp. 52-53, Chap. 2.