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 ...

20. Thus in other cases also, on account of the connexion (of particulars with one and the same vidyā).

We read in the Bṛhad-āraṇyaka (V, 5), 'The true is Brahman,' and, further on, 'Now what is the true, that is the Āditya, the person that dwells in yonder orb, and the person in the right eye.' Having thus declared the different abodes of that true Brahman with reference to the gods and with reference to the body, and having, in what follows, identified its body with the sacred syllables (bhūḥ, &c.), the text teaches its two secret names (upaniṣad), 'Its secret name is ahar' with reference to the gods; and 'its secret name is aham' with reference to the body.--A doubt here arises whether these two secret names are both to be applied to the deva-abode of Brahman as well as to its bodily abode, or only one name to each.

The above Sūtra maintains the pūrvapakṣa view. Just as certain particulars though recorded elsewhere are yet to be combined with the Sāṇḍilya-vidyā, so we have to proceed in other cases also, as e.g. the one under discussion, because the particulars mentioned are all connected with one vidyā. The vidyā of the True with its double reference to the Devas and to the body is one only, as we infer from the fact of its having one exordium only ('The true is Brahman'), and from the way in which the text interconnects Āditya and the person in the eye. Why then should an attribute belonging to one of the latter not belong to the other also? For, to quote an analogous case, certain rules of life which are prescribed for a teacher--as e.g. having a following of pupils--remain equally valid whether the teacher be in a village or in a wood. For these reasons both secret names equally belong to the Āditya as well as to the person within the eye. This view the next Sūtra refutes.

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