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INTRODUCTION.
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various manifestations-a conception which need not by any means be modelled in all its details on the views of the Râmânugas-the definition of Brahman given in the second Sûtra becomes altogether unobjectionable.
We next enquire whether the impression left on the mind by the manner in which Bâdarayana defines Brahman, viz. that he does not distinguish between an absolute Brahman and a Brahman associated with Mâya, is confirmed or weakened by any other parts of his work. The Sûtras being throughout far from direct in their enunciations, we shall have to look less to particular terms and turns of expression than to general lines of reasoning. What in this connexion seems specially worthy of being taken into account, is the style of argumentation employed by the Sûtrakâra against the Sankhya doctrine, which maintains that the world has originated, not from an intelligent being, but from the non-intelligent pradhana. The most important Sûtras relative to this point are to be met with in the first pâda of the second adhyâya. Those Sûtras are indeed almost unintelligible if taken by themselves, but the unanimity of the commentators as to their ineaning enables us to use them as steps in our investigation. The sixth Sutra of the pada mentioned replies to the Sankhya objection that the non-intelligent world cannot spring from an intelligent principle, by the remark that 'it is thus seen,' i.e. it is a matter of common observation that non-intelligent things are produced from beings endowed with intelligence; hair and nails, for instance, springing from animals, and certain insects from dung.–Now, an argumentation of this kind is altogether out of place from the point of view of the true Sankara. According to the latter the non-intelligent world does not spring from Brahman in so far as the latter is intelligence, but in so far as it is associated with Mâyå. Mâyâ is the upâdâna of the material world, and Mâyå itself is of a non-intelligent nature, owing to which it is by so many Vedântic writers identified with the prakriti of the Sarikhyas. Similarly the illustrative instances, adduced under Sûtra 9 for the purpose of showing that effects when being reabsorbed into their causal sub
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