Charlotte Krause her Life and Literature

Author(s): Shreeprakash Pandey
Publisher: Parshwanath Vidyapith

Page 57

12
Dr. Charlotte Krause : Her Life & Literature
contain prescriptions of this kind, are declared to be authoritative. The rest, are disposed of under the name of 'Arthavāda', i.e., ‘Eulogia', and never earnestly taken account of. This is the reason why this system has also been called Adhvara-mīmāmsā, i.e., 'sacrificial Mimāṁsā'.
It denies, by-the-bye, the possibility of the attainment of omniscience, in contradistinction to all the other systems. 4. Vedānta
The Uttara-mīmāṁsā, Brahma-mīmāṁsā or Vedānta philosophy of Rși Vyāsa ( Bādarāyaṇa ) is the most important of the Hindu Darśanas, from the practical stand-point, since it is the only one that plays a part in modern Indian civilization. It has two great branches, the former of which is the Advaita Vedānta of Sankarācārya.
The Advaita Vedānta of Sankarācārya whom western Indology believes to have lived in the last decades of the 8th, and the early decades of the 9th centuries, has a considerable historical importance as that might which violently opposed and oppressed Buddhism as well as Jainism, at and after the time of its founder, and brought about a vigorous revival of the study of Saṁskṛta, and more especially, philosophical literature all over India.
The essential feature of this system is the assumption of one single, all-pervading entity, the 'Brahma'which is ‘Saccidānanda', i.e., really existing, omniscient and consisting of boundless eternal happiness. Unlike the Puruşa of Sārkhya, the Brahmais, and always remains, one. Since eternity, however, this Brahma has been inseparably interlinked with the unreal entity 'Māyā', i.e., illusion, or ‘Avidyā', i.e., reason of erroneous knowledge (not ignorance, as many people translate ). Māyā acts the part of Prakrti, with the only difference that its products are completely unreal, and that the image of Brahma reflected by the Samasti-Buddhitattva is called God. It is different from the plurality of individual souls, which represent Brahma's image as reflected by the Vyasti-Buddhitattvas or ‘Antah