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 ...
III, 4, 16
16. And (scripture teaches) the destruction (of the qualification for works, by knowledge).
Moreover scripture teaches that this whole apparent world-which springs from Nescience, is characterised by actions, agents and results of actions and is the cause of all qualification for works--is essentially destroyed by the power of knowledge. Compare such passages as 'But when all has become the Self of him, wherewith should he see another, wherewith should he smell another?' (Bṛ. Up. IV, 5, 15). For him now who should teach that the qualification for works has for its necessary antecedent the knowledge of the Self which the Vedānta-texts teach, it would follow that the qualification for works is cut short altogether. From this also it follows that knowledge is independent.