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146
SANATSUGÂTIYA.
who entirely reject the Vedic revelation. But without going as far as that, the Sanatsugâtiya seems certainly to join the Bhagavadgità in its protest against those men of extreme views, who could see nothing beyond the rites and ceremonies taught in the Vedas. A study of the Vedas is, indeed, insisted on in sundry passages of the Sanatsugâtîya. But it is equally maintained, that the performance of the ceremonies laid down in the Vedas is not the true means of final emancipation. It is maintained, that action done with any desire is a cause of bondage to worldly life; that the gods themselves are ordinary creatures who have reached a certain high position owing to the practice of the duties of Brahmakärins, but that they are not only not superior to, but are really under the control of, the man who has acquired the true knowledge of the universal self. On all these points, we have opinions expressed in the Sanatsugåtîya, which conclusively establish an identity of doctrine as between the Upanishads and the Bhagavadgita' on the one hand, and the Sanatsugâtiya on the other. Lastly, we have an explicit statement, that thc mere study of Vedic texts avails nothing, and that sin is not to be got rid of by one who merely 'studies the Rik and the Yagus texts, and the Sânia-veda. It is not necessary to repeat here the chronological deductions which may be based upon this relation between the Sanatsugatiya and the Vedas. We have already argued in the Introduction to the Bhagavadgitá, that such a relation points to a period of Indian religious history prior to the great movement of Gautama Buddha ?
There is, however, this difference, perhaps, to be noted between the Gità and the Sanatsugâtiya-namely, that the latter work seems to afford more certain indications of the recognition, at the date of its composition, of a Gñânakanda as distinguished from a Karmakanda in the Vedas, than, we have seen, are contained in the Bhagavadgita'. The passage, for instance, which spcaks of the K'handas as
1 Cl. p. 16 supra
Cl. pp. 35, 36.
'P.17.
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