Brahma-Sūtra 4.2.14

English of translation of Brahmasutra 4.2.14 by Roma Bose:

“Those in the highest, for thus (scripture) says.”

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

The subtle elements like fire and the rest merge in the Highest. The Scripture says: “Eire in the highest divinity” (Chāndogya-upaniṣad 6.8.6^[1]).

Śrīnivāsa’s commentary (Vedānta-kaustubha)

Now, the author states the meaning of the text: “Fire in the highest divinity” (Chāndogya-upaniṣad 6.8.6), the last one of the series.^[2]

It has been said that at the time of departure, the vital-breath, together with speech and the rest, enter into the subtle elements like fire and the rest through ‘the ruler’ (viz. the soul). On the doubt, viz. whether those subtle elements, accompanied by the entities beginning with speech and ending with the vital-breath, and forming the parts of the knower’s subtle body, proceed to produce their respective effects as appropriate or are dissolved in the Highest Self,—if the first alternative be taken to be true.

We reply: “Those” merge “in the Highest, i.e. in Brahman, the Highest, the soul of all. Why? “For” Scripture itself “says” “thus”, i.e. says that the Highest Self is the resting place of the soul as He is during the state of deep sleep and universal dissolution, thus: “Fire in the highest divinity” (Chāndogya-upaniṣad 6.8.6.). That is, ‘fire’, or those subtle elements like fire and the rest, enter into the supreme cause. The sense is that having departed from the gross body, having resorted to the subtle body set up by knowledge, having thereby reached the Virajā, the best of the rivers, and having discarded the subtle body in the Highest, the knower attains the nature of the Highest Hence it is established that those merge in the Highest.

Here ends the section entitled “Entering into the Highest” (6).

Comparative views of Śaṅkara:

According to him, this sūtra too refers to the higher knower only and not to the lower knower. The subtle body of a real knower is directly merged in Brahman at once, (without having to travel through any path)^[3]. This is sūtra 15 in his commentary.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Quoted by Rāmānuja, Śrīkaṇṭha and Baladeva.

[2]:

Beginning with speech. Vide Brahma-sūtra 4.2.1.

[3]:

Brahma-sūtras (Śaṃkara’s commentary) 4.2.15, pp. 940-941.