Brahma Sutras (Ramanuja)
by George Thibaut | 1904 | 275,953 words | ISBN-10: 8120801350 | ISBN-13: 9788120801356
The English translation of the Brahma Sutras (also, Vedanta Sutras) with commentary by Ramanuja (known as the Sri Bhasya). The Brahmasutra expounds the essential philosophy of the Upanishads which, primarily revolving around the knowledge of Brahman and Atman, represents the foundation of Vedanta. Ramanjua’s interpretation of these sutras from a V...
Sutra 2.3.23
23. And on account of the very word, and of measure.
Scripture directly applies the word 'aṇu' to the individual Self, 'By thought is to be known that atomic Self into which Breath has entered fivefold' (Mu. Up. III, 1, 9).—By the term 'unmāna' in the Sūtra we have to understand measurement by selection of comparative instances. Scripture declares the minuteness of the individual Self by reference to things which are like atoms in size, 'The individual soul is to be known as part of the hundredth part of the point of a hair divided a hundred times, and yet it is to be infinite' (Śvet. Up. V, 9); 'that lower one is seen of the measure of the point of a goad' (V, 8). For these reasons also the individual Self must be viewed as atomic.—But this conflicts with the fact that sensation extends over the whole body!—This objection the next Sūtra refutes by means of an analogous instance.