Brahma Sutras (Nimbarka commentary)
by Roma Bose | 1940 | 290,526 words
English translation of the Brahma-sutra 3.3.24, 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 3.3.24
English of translation of Brahmasutra 3.3.24 by Roma Bose:
“And even in the meditation on the person (there is no transference of attributes), on account of others being not recorded.”
Nimbārka’s commentary (Vedānta-pārijāta-saurabha):
As “even in the meditation on the person”,—recorded in the Chāndogya thus: “The person, verily, is a sacrifice” (Chāndogya-upaniṣad 3.16.1[1]) and in the manual of the Taittirīyas thus: “For him who knows thus” (Taittirīya-āraṇyaka 10.64;[2] Mahānārāyaṇa-upaniṣad 25.1),—the details mentioned in one place, viz. “His twenty-four years are the morning libation” (Chāndogya-upaniṣad 3.16.1), are not recorded in another, so the vidyās are different.
Śrīnivāsa’s commentary (Vedānta-kaustubha)
Previously, in accordance with the reason (stated in Brahma-sūtra 3.3.21); ‘On account of difference’, the meditation on (Brahman) as endowed with the attributes like holding together and so on was demonstrated to be different from the meditations on Brahman as taught by Śāṇḍilya and others. Now, by showing the difference of the meditations on the person, (the author) is removing the doubt that in the ease of meditations on the person, the meditations are identical on account of the non-difference of names and the rest.
The meditation on the person is recorded in the Chāndogya in the Rahasya-brāhmaṇa of the Tāṇḍins and the Paiṅgins thus: “The person, verily, is a sacrifice. His twenty-four years are the morning libation” (Chāndogya-upaniṣad 3.16.1), “Now the forty-four years are the mid-day libation” (Chāndogya-upaniṣad 3.16.3), “Now the forty-eight years are the third libation” (Chāndogya-upaniṣad 3.16.5) and so on. In the manuals of the Taittirīyas too, there is a meditation on the person in the first section: “For him who knows thus, the soul of the sacrifice is the sacrifices, faith his wife, his body the fuel, his breast the sacrificial altar, his body-hairs the sacrificial grass” (Taittirīya-āraṇyaka 10.64; Mahānārāyaṇa-upaniṣad 25.1).
Here the doubt is as to whether the meditations recorded in the two places are different or identical. If it be suggested that on account of the non-difference of names and the rest, the meditations are the same,—(the author) states the correct conclusion; “Even in the meditation on the person”. The meditations on the person are different. Why? Because “even in the meditation on the person” of the Chāndogya and the Taittirīya-manual, recorded without distinction, the attributes which are mutually different are “not recorded”, i.e. not mentioned, in the other place. Thus, in the Chāndogya, the life of a person, up to his hundred and sixteen years, divided thrice, is imagined to be a libation. In the Taittirīya-manual, on the other hand, in the text: “The evening, the morning and the mid-day are the libations” (Taittirīya-āraṇyaka 10.64; Mahānārāyaṇa-upaniṣad 25.1), three libations are imagined, but in the Chāndogya three libations are not imagined.[3] Moreover, in the Chāndogya, the desire to eat and the rest are imagined to be the purificatory ceremony and so on,[4] but not in the Taittirīya-manuals. In the Chāndogya, a person is imagined to be a sacrifice thus: “The person, verily, is a sacrifice” (Chāndogya-upaniṣad 3.16.1), but his soul and the rest are not imagined to be the saerificer and so on. In the Taittirīya-manual, on the other hand, the soul of the person is imagined to be a sacrifice and so on thus: “For him who knows thus, the soul of the sacrifice is the sacrificer” (Ait, Ār. 10.64; Mahānārāyaṇa-upaniṣad 25.1[5]). Hence there is a difference of form in the two eases, since everywhere the difference of special points is the cause of the difference of meditation. There is a difference of connection with fruit as well. In the Chāndogya, to begin with, the fruit of the meditation on the person is the attainment of longevity.[6] In the Taittirīya-manuals, on the other hand, the attainment of Brahman is the fruit of the meditation on the person. Thus, having set forth the meditation on Brahman in the previous section thus: “Let him unite himself with you, the great Brahman, Om” (Taittirīya-āraṇyaka 10.63;[7] Mahānārāyaṇa-upaniṣad 24.2), and having stated the fruit belonging to a knower of Brahman, viz. the attainment of Brahman thus: “He attains the greatness of Brahman” (Taittirīya-āraṇyaka 10.63;[8] Mahānārāyaṇa-upaniṣad 24.2), the text goes on to say: “For him who knows thus, the soul of the sacrifice” (Taittirīya-āraṇyaka 10.64; Mahānārāyaṇa-upaniṣad 25.2) and so on. As there is a reference to the knower of Brahman by the term ‘him’ here, and as it (viz. the meditation on the person) is mentioned in the immediate vicinity (of the meditation on Brahman), so it is gathered that the meditation on the person here is a subsidiary part of the meditation on Brahman, and that (as such) the former has no reference to a different fruit. This being so, it is deduced that the attainment of Brahman alone is the fruit of the meditation on the person which is a subsidiary part of the meditation on Brahman. Hence it is established that as the identity of mere names, viz. ‘meditation on the person’ (puruṣa-vidyā), in the two cases, is of no great importance, the vidyās are different; that being so, there is no combination of their special features.
Here ends the section entitled “The meditation on the person” (9).
Comparative views of Śaṅkara:
He reads “Puruṣa-vidyāyām iva”, instead of “Puruṣa-vidyāyām api”, and explains the sūtra thus: “As (the record of the Tāṇḍins and Paiṅgins is) in the puruṣa-vidyā, (not such is the record) of others”.[9] Conclusion reached, the same.
Comparative views of Baladeva:
This is sūtra 25 in his commentary. Like Śaṅkara he reads: “iva” in place of “api”. He concludes here the topic of the worship of the God-possessed souls, viz. that they, being not equal to the Lord, are not to be meditated on as possessed of His attributes. Hence the sūtra: (“As attributes like creatorship, rulership, and so on, are declared to be belonging to the Lord) in the meditation on the person (i.e. in the Puruṣa-sūktas of the Veda) and (in the Gopāla-pūrva-tāpanī), (so they are) not declared (to be belonging) to others (viz. the God-possessed souls)”.[10]
Footnotes and references:
[1]:
Quoted by Rāmānuja and Śrīkaṇṭha.
[2]:
P. 779, Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, Bhāskara and Śrīkaṇṭha.
[3]:
In the Chāndogya, the parts of the one and the same thing are fancifully represented as three libations; while in the Taittirīya-manuals three different things are so represented.
[4]:
Vide Chānd, 3.16.1-5. “When he desires to eat and drink and does not enjoy himself—that is his purificatory ceremony,” etc.
[5]:
The Chāndogya stops at identifying a person with a sacrifice, but does not enter into any details. The Taittirīya-manuals differ from the Chāndogya not only in not identifying a person with a sacrifice, but also in entering into greater details.
[6]:
Vide Chāndogya-upaniṣad 3.16.7. “He who knows this lives for hundred and sixteen years.”
[7]:
Pp. 774-775.
[8]:
P. 775.
[9]:
Brahma-sūtras (Śaṅkara’s commentary) 3.3.24, p. 790.
[10]:
Govinda-bhāṣya 3.3.25, pp. 149-150, Chap. 3.