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 ...
II, 2, 8
8. And, again, (the pradhāna cannot be active) because the relation of principal (and subordinate matter) is impossible (between the three guṇas).
For the following reason also activity on the part of the pradhāna is not possible.--The condition of the pradhāna consists in the three guṇas, viz. goodness, passion, and darkness, abiding in themselves in a state of equipoise without standing to one another in the relation of mutual superiority or inferiority. In that state the guṇas cannot possibly enter into the relation of mutual subserviency because thereby they would forfeit their essential characteristic, viz. absolute independence. And as there exists no extraneous principle to stir up the guṇas, the production of the great principle and the other effects--which would acquire for its operative cause a non-balanced state of the guṇas--is impossible.