________________
xx] Vātsya Varada
349 himself discarded the view that time is a separate entity in his commentary on the Brahma-sūtra, the Vedānta-dīpaand the Vedānta-sāra.
The notion of time originates from the relative position of the sun in the zodiac with reference to earth. It is the varying earth-space that appears as time, being conditioned by the relative positions of the Sun”. This view is entirely different from that of Venkata which will be described later on.
Karma and its fruits. According to Meghanādāri deeds produce their fruits through the satisfaction and dissatisfaction of God. Though ordinarily deeds are regarded as virtuous or vicious, yet strictly speaking virtue and vice should be regarded as the fruits of actions and these fruits are nothing but the satisfaction and dissatisfaction of God. The performance of good deeds in the past determines the performance of similar deeds in the future by producing helpful tendencies, capacities and circumstances in his favour, and the performance of bad deeds forces a man to take a vicious line of action in the future. At the time of dissolution also there is no separate dharma and adharma, but God's satisfaction and dissatisfaction produced by the individual's deeds determine the nature and extent of his sufferings and enjoyment as well as his tendencies towards virtue or vice at the time of the next creation. The fruits of actions are experienced in the Heaven and Hell and also in the mundane life, but not while the individual is passing from Heaven or Hell to earth, for at that time there is no experience of pleasure or pain, it being merely a state of transition. Again, except in the case of those sacrifices which are performed for injuring or molesting other fellow beings, there is no sin in the killing of animals in sacrifices which are performed for the attainment of Heaven or such other pleasurable purposes.
Vātsya Varada. Regarding the doctrine of Vedic injunction that one should study the Vedas, Vātsya Varada in his Prameya-mālā holds the view, in contradistinction to the Sabara Bhāsya, that Vedic injunction is satisfied only in the actual reading of the Vedic texts and that the Vedic injunction does not imply an inquiry into the mean
sūryā-di-sambandha-viseso-pādhitaḥ prthivyā-dideśānām eva kāla-samjñā. Naya-dyu-maņi, p. 168.
2 Ibid. pp. 243-246.
