Handbook of History of Religions

SR No.: 007634
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Edward Washburn
Publisher: Sanmati Tirth Prakashan Pune
Total Pages: 678
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 2 MB

Page 400

attributes one must become indifferent to all change, be undisturbed by anything, and worship Me with devotion.... I am to be learned from all the Vedas; I made the Ved[=a]nta; I alone know the Vedas. There are two persons in the world, one destructible and one indestructible; the destructible one is all created things; the indestructible one is called the Unchanging one. But there is still a third highest person, called the Supreme Spirit, who, pervading the three worlds, supports them, the inexhaustible Lord. Inasmuch as I surpass the destructible and am higher than the indestructible, therefore am I known in the world and in the Veda as the Highest Person."
The references to the S[=a]nkhyas, or S[=a]nkhya-Yogas, are not yet exhausted. There is another in a following chapter (vi. 18. 13) which some scholiasts say refers to the Ved[=a]nta-system, though this is in direct contradiction to the text. But the extracts already given suffice to show how vague and uncertain are, on the whole, the philosophical views on which depends the Divine Song. Until the end of these citations one hears only of nature and spirit, the two that have no beginning, but here one finds the Supreme Spirit, which is as distinct from the indestructible one as from the destructible. Moreover, 'nature' is in one place represented as from the beginning distinct from spirit and entirely apart from it, and in another it is only a transient phase. The delusion (illusion) which in one passage is all that exists apart from the Supreme Spirit is itself given up in favor of the S[=a]nkhya Prakriti, with which one must imagine it to be identified, although from the text itself it cannot be identical. In a word, exactly as in Manu, there are different philosophical conceptions, united without any logical basis for their union. The 'system' is in general that of the S[=a]nkhya-Yogas, but there is much which is purely Ved[=a]nta. The S[=a]nkhya system is taught elsewhere as a means of salvation, perhaps always as the deistic Yoga (i. 75. 7: "He taught them the Sankhya-knowledge as salvation"). It is further noticeable that although Krishna (Vishnu) is the ostensible speaker, there is scarcely anything to indicate that the poem was originally composed even for Vishnu. The Divine Song was probably, as we have said, a late Upanishad, which afterwards was expanded and put into Vishnu's mouth. The S[=ajnkhya portions have been redressed as far as possible and to the illusion