Brahma Sutras (Shankaracharya)

by George Thibaut | 1890 | 203,611 words

English translation of the Brahma sutras (aka. Vedanta Sutras) with commentary by Shankaracharya (Shankara Bhashya): One of the three canonical texts of the Vedanta school of Hindu philosophy. The Brahma sutra is the exposition of the philosophy of the Upanishads. It is an attempt to systematise the various strands of the Upanishads which form the ...

15. Moreover (the ānandamaya is Brahman because) the same (Brahman) which had been referred to in the mantra is sung, (i.e. proclaimed in the Brāhmaṇa passage as the ānandamaya.)

The Self, consisting of joy, is the highest Brahman for the following reason also[1]. On the introductory words 'he who knows Brahman attains the highest' (Taitt. Up. II, 1), there follows a mantra proclaiming that Brahman, which forms the general topic of the chapter, possesses the qualities of true existence, intelligence, infinity; after that it is said that from Brahman there sprang at first the ether and then all other moving and non-moving things, and that, entering into the beings which it had emitted, Brahman stays in the recess, inmost of all; thereupon, for its better comprehension, the series of the different Selfs ('different from this is the inner Self,' &c.) are enumerated, and then finally the same Brahman which the mantra had proclaimed, is again proclaimed in the passage under discussion, 'different from this is the other inner Self, which consists of bliss.' To assume that a mantra and the Brāhmaṇa passage belonging to it have the same sense is only proper, on account of the absence of contradiction (which results therefrom); for otherwise we should be driven to the unwelcome inference that the text drops the topic once started, and turns to an altogether new subject.

Nor is there mentioned a further inner Self different from the Self consisting of bliss, as in the case of the Self consisting of food, &c.[2] On the same (i.e. the Self consisting of bliss) is founded, 'This same knowledge of Bhṛgu and Varuṇa; he understood that bliss is Brahman' (Taitt. Up. III, 6). Therefore the Self consisting of bliss is the highest Self.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

The previous proofs were founded on liṅga; the argument which is now propounded is founded on prakaraṇa.

[2]:

While, in the case of the Selfs consisting of food and so on, a further inner Self is duly mentioned each time. It cannot, therefore, be concluded that the Selfs consisting of food, &c., are likewise identical with the highest Self referred to in the mantra.

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