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...

50. And by a subsequent (Brāhmaṇa) also the 'being of such a kind' of the word (is proved). But the connexion is on account of plurality.

The subsequent Brāhmaṇa (Śat. Br. X, 5, 4) also proves that the text treating of the altars made of mind, and so on, enjoins a meditation only. For that Brāhmaṇa (which begins 'This brick-built fire-altar is this world; the waters are its enclosing-stones,' etc.) declares further on 'whosoever knows this thus comes to be that whole Agni who is the space-filler,' and from this it appears that what is enjoined there is a meditation with a special result of its own. And further on (X, 6) there is another meditation enjoined, viz. one on Vaiśvānara. All this shows that the Agnirahasya book (Śat. Br. X) is not solely concerned with the injunction of outward sacrificial acts.—But what then is the reason that such matters as the mental (meditative) construction of fire-altars which ought to be included in the Bṛhad-āraṇyaka are included in the Agnirahasya?—'That connexion is on account of plurality,' i.e. the altars made of mind, and so on, are, in the sacred text, dealt with in proximity to the real altar made of bricks, because so many details of the latter are mentally to be accomplished in the meditation.—Here terminates the adhikaraṇa of 'option with the previous one.'

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