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VEDANTA-SUTRAS.
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himself off from all evil conduct.-Here terminates the adhikarana of 'the reaching of that.'
14. Of the other also there is thus non-clinging; but at death.
It has been said that, owing to knowledge, earlier and subsequent sins do not cling and are destroyed. The same holds good also with regard to the other, i. e. to good works-they also, owing to knowledge, do not cling and are destroyed; for there is the same antagonism between knowledge and the fruit of those works, and Scripture moreover expressly declares this. Thus we read, 'Day and night do not pass that bank-neither good nor evil deeds. All sins turn back from it' (Kh. Up. VIII, 4, 1); 'He shakes off his good and evil deeds' (Kau. Up. I, 4). In the former of these texts good works are expressly designated as 'sin' because their fruits also are something not desirable for him who aims at Release; there is some reason for doing this because after all good works are enjoined by Scripture and their fruits are desired by men, and they hence might be thought not to be opposed to knowledge. But even to him who possesses the knowledge of Brahman, the fruits of good deeds-such as seasonable rain, good crops, &c.-are desirable because they enable him to perform his meditations in due form; how then can it be said that knowledge is antagonistic to them and destroys them ?-Of this point the Sûtra disposes by means of the clause 'but on death.' Good works which produce results favourable to knowledge and meditation perish only on the death of the body (not during the lifetime of the Devotee). Here terminates the adhikarana of 'the other.'
15. But only those former works the effects of which have not yet begun; on account of that being the term.
A new doubt arises here, viz. whether all previous good and evil works are destroyed by the origination of knowledge, or only those the effects of which have not yet begun to operate. All works alike, the Purvapakshin says; for the texts-as e. g. 'all sins are burned-declare the fruits
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