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xcii
VEDANTA-SUTRAS.
pretations than to the indications furnished by the Sutras themselves.
Placing myself at the point of view of a Sânkara, I am startled at the outset by the second Sûtra of the first adhyaya, which undertakes to give a definition of Brahman. 'Brahman is that whence the origination and so on (i.e. the sustentation and reabsorption) of this world proceed.' What, we must ask, is this Sûtra meant to define?-That Brahman, we are inclined to answer, whose cognition the first Sûtra declares to constitute the task of the entire Vedanta ; that Brahman whose cognition is the only road to final release; that Brahman in fact which Sankara calls the highest. But, here we must object to ourselves, the highest Brahman is not properly defined as that from which the world originates. In later Vedantic writings, whose authors were clearly conscious of the distinction of the higher absolute Brahman and the lower Brahman related to Mâyâ or the world, we meet with definitions of Brahman of an altogether different type. I need only remind the reader of the current definition of Brahman as sak-kid-ânanda, or, to mention one individual instance, refer to the introductory slokas of the Pañkadasi dilating on the samvid svayamprabhâ, the self-luminous principle of thought which in all time, past or future, neither starts into being nor perishes (P. D. I, 7). That from which the world proceeds' can by a Sânkara be accepted only as a definition of Îsvara, of Brahman which by its association with Mâyâ is enabled to project the false appearance of this world, and it certainly is as improbable that the Sûtras should open with a definition of that inferior principle, from whose cognition there can accrue no permanent benefit, as, according to a remark made above, it is unlikely that they should conclude with a description of the state of those who know the lower Brahman only, and thus are debarred from obtaining true release. As soon, on the other hand, as we discard the idea of a twofold Brahman and conceive Brahman as one only, as the all-enfolding being which sometimes emits the world from its own substance and sometimes again retracts it into itself, ever remaining one in all its
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