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CHAPTER III
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of the complex, or the organic unity of the whole, viz., īśvara and the souls in association with matter. In other words, the text signifies, according to Visiştādvaitism, the idea of a concrete unity—not the abstract Advaitic identity—which is constituted by brahman and the attributes of cit and acit qualifying brahman'. Rāmānuja invokes support for his interpretation of the above text from the notion of sāmānādhikaranya or the “grammatical principle of the co-ordination of words in a sentence" 2. According to grammarians sāmānādhikaranya, or co-ordination, conveys the abiding of several attributes in a common substrate; or “the application to one thing of several words for the application of each of which there is a different motive"? The aim of co-ordination is, therefore, "just to convey the idea of one thing being qualified by several attributes". Here'one thing'evidently refers to the unchanging unitary principle of Iśvara and the 'several attributes' to the realms of cit and acit which are marked by difference, muta
For a fuller discussion of the nature and implications of tat tvam asi in the present school, see Śrībhāşya (text, Abhyankar's edn.), p. 110 ff., Vedāntasūtras, pp. 129-138, and śribhāşya, Vol. I, E.T. by Mr. Rangacharya and M. B. Varadaraja Aiyangar, Madras, 1899, pp. 211-224, Vedārthasangraha, p. 37, etc., and Sukhtankar, op. cit., pp. 288-289. For the various interpretations of this mahā vākya by the different Vedāntic schools see Višişta
dvaita, p. 594 ff. 2. Višişțădvaita, p. 38.
Vedāntasūtras, pp. 79-80. Cf. bhinnapravsttinimittānām śabdānām ekasmin arthe vrttih sämänādhikaran vam iti śăbdikāh / Sribhâsya (text, Abhyankar's edn.), p. 59. See also what precedes this
statement and Vedarthasangraha, p. 51. 4. Vedāntasūtras, p. 79.
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