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XXVI]
Interpretation of Brahma-sutra 1. 1. 2
phenomenal experience is itself considered as being indefinable, then the same sorts of questions may again be asked about it, and the series will be infinite; this would be a true case of a vicious infinite, and not like the harmless infinite of the seed and the shoot; for here, unless the previous series is satisfactorily taken as giving a definite solution, the succeeding series cannot be solved, and that again depends in a similar way on another, and that on another and so on, and so no solution is possible at any stage1. Therefore the old view that even the unreal and the non-existent may appear as the real and the existent has to be accepted; and the world-appearance should not be considered as indefinable (anirvacaniya).
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Interpretation of Brahma-sūtra I. I. 2.
The literal translation of the second sūtra, janmādy asya yataḥ, is "from which production, etc., of this". The purport of Sankara's commentary on this sūtra may briefly be stated as follows: "Production, etc." means production, existence and destruction. Production, existence and destruction of this world-appearance, which is so great, so orderly and so diversified, is from that ultimate cause, God (Iśvara); and neither the paramāņus nor the inanimate prakṛti
can be its cause. This rule is not intended to stand as an inference in favour of the existence of God, but is merely the description of the purport of the Upanisad texts on the nature of Brahman 2; for the ultimate grasp of the nature of Brahman, which is beyond the range of our sense-organs, can only come through the right comprehension of the meaning of Upanisad texts.
Jaya-tirtha, in commenting on the Bhasya of Madhva and the Anuvyākhyāna, follows Madhva in explaining this sūtra as a definition (lakṣaṇa) of Brahman, intended to differentiate Him from beings of His class, viz., the souls (jiva), and inanimate objects, which belong to a different class. The idea is that that from which the production, etc., of the world takes place is Brahman, and there are important śruti texts which say that the world was produced from Brahman3. It has already been pointed out that by "pro
1 Nyaya-sudhā, p. 59.
2 janmādi-sūtram nanumānopanyāsārtham kim tarhi vedanta-vākya-pradarsanärtham.
a Jaya-tirtha refers to another interpretation of the sutra as janma ādyasya hiranyagarbhasya yatas tad brahma. The Tatparya-candrikā discusses the points of view raised in the Nyāya-sudhā and elsewhere with regard to the meaning of
