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xcvi
VEDANTA-SÛTRAS.
indeed either-is to be accepted as a trustworthy guide; regarding the sense of some Sûtras Sankara's explanation seems to deserve preference, in the case of others Râmânuga seems to keep closer to the text. I decidedly prefer, for instance, Râmânuga's interpretation of Sûtra 22, as far as the sense of the entire Sûtra is concerned, and more especially with regard to the term 'prakritaitâvattvam,' whose proper force is brought out by Râmânuga's explanation only. So much is certain that none of the Sûtras decidedly favours the interpretation proposed by Sankara. Whichever commentator we follow, we greatly miss coherence and strictness of reasoning, and it is thus by no means improbable that the section is one of those-perhaps not few in number-in which both interpreters had less regard to the literal sense of the words and to tradition than to their desire of forcing Bâdarâyana's Sûtras to bear testimony to the truth of their own philosophic theories.
With special reference to the Mâyâ doctrine one important Sûtra has yet to be considered, the only one in which the term 'mâyâ' itself occurs, viz. III, 2, 3. According to Sankara the Sûtra signifies that the environments of the dreaming soul are not real but mere Mâyâ, i. e. unsubstantial illusion, because they do not fully manifest the character of real objects. Râmânuga (as we have seen in the conspectus) gives a different explanation of the term 'mâyâ,' but in judging of Sankara's views we may for the time accept Sankara's own interpretation. Now, from the latter it clearly follows that if the objects seen in dreams are to be called Mâyâ, i.e. illusion, because not evincing the characteristics of reality, the objective world surrounding the waking soul must not be called Mâyâ. But that the world perceived by waking men is Mâyâ, even in a higher sense than the world presented to the dreaming consciousness, is an undoubted tenet of the Sânkara Vedanta ; and the Sûtra therefore proves either that Bâdarâyana did not hold the doctrine of the illusory character of the world, or else that, if after all he did hold that doctrine, he used the term 'mâyâ' in a sense altogether different from that
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