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 ...

3. If it be said (that the pradhāna moves) like milk or water, (we reply that) there also (the motion is due to intelligence).

Well, the Sāṅkhya resumes, listen then to the following instances.--As non-sentient milk flows forth from its own nature merely for the nourishment of the young animal, and as non-sentient water, from its own nature, flows along for the benefit of mankind, so the pradhāna also, although non-intelligent, may be supposed to move from its own nature merely for the purpose of effecting the highest end of man.

This argumentation, we reply, is unsound again; for as the adherents of both doctrines admit that motion is not observed in the case of merely non-intelligent things such as chariots, &c., we infer that water and milk also move only because they are directed by intelligent powers. Scriptural passages, moreover (such as 'He who dwells in the water and within the water, who rules the water within,' Bṛ. Up. III, 7, 4; and, 'By the command of that Akṣara, O Gārgī, some rivers flow to the East,' &c., Bṛ. Up. III, 8, 9), declare that everything in this world which flows is directed by the Lord. Hence the instances of milk and water as belonging themselves to that class of cases which prove our general principle[1] cannot be used to show that the latter is too wide.--Moreover, the cow, which is an intelligent being and loves her calf, makes her milk flow by her wish to do so, and the milk is in addition drawn forth by the sucking of the calf. Nor does water move either with absolute independence--for its flow depends on the declivity of the soil and similar circumstances--or independently of an intelligent principle, for we have shown that the latter is present in all cases--If, finally, our opponent should point to Sūtra II, 1, 24 as contradicting the present Sūtra, we remark that there we have merely shown on the ground of ordinary experience that an effect may take place in itself independently of any external instrumental cause; a conclusion which does not contradict the doctrine, based on Scripture, that all effects depend on the Lord.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Viz. that whatever moves or acts does so under the influence of intelligence.--Sādhyapakṣanikṣiptatvaṃ sādhyavati pakṣe praviṣṭatvam eva tac ca sapakṣanikṣiptatvasyāpy upalakṣaṇam, anpanyāso na vyabhicārabhūmir ity arthaḥ. Ān. Gi.

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