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, 49
49. On account of there being injunction of the others also, in the same way as of the state of a Muni.
As the state of the Muni (Saṃnyāsin) and the state of the householder are enjoined in scripture, so also the two other orders, viz. that of the hermit, and that of the student. For we have already pointed above to passages such as Austerity is the second, and to dwell as a student in the house of a teacher is the third.' As thus the four āśramas are equally taught by scripture, they are to be gone through equally, either in the way of option (between them) or in the way of comprehension (of all of them).--That the Sūtra uses a plural form (of 'the others') when speaking of two orders only, is due to its having regard either to the different sub-classes of those two, or to their different duties.