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VEDÂNTA-SOTRAS.
aphorism, the general drift and spirit of the whole work, and that, as we have seen hitherto, is by no means favourable to the pratibimba doctrine. How indeed could Sûtra 50, if setting forth that latter doctrine, be reconciled with Sûtra 43, which says distinctly that the soul is a part of Brahman? For that 43 contains, as Sankara and his commentators aver, a statement of the avakkhedavâda, can itself be accepted only if we interpret amsa by amsa iva, and to do so there is really no valid reason whatever. I confess that Råmânuga's interpretation of the Satra (which however is accepted by several other commentators also) does not appear to me particularly convincing; and the Sûtras unfortunately offer us no other passages on the ground of which we might settle the meaning to be ascribed to the term abhâsa, which may mean 'reflection,' but may mean hetvâbhâsa, i. e. fallacious argument, as well. But as things stand, this one Sätra cannot, at any rate, be appealed to as proving that the pratibimbavada which, in its turn, presupposes the mâyâvâda, is the teaching of the Sûtras.
To the conclusion that the Sûtrakâra did not hold the doctrine of the absolute identity of the highest and the individual soul in the sense of Sankara, we are further led by some other indications to be met with here and there in the Satras. In the conspectus of contents we have had occasion to direct attention to the important Sätra II, 1, 22, which distinctly enunciates that the Lord is adhika, i.e. additional to, or different from, the individual soul, since Scripture declares the two to be different. Analogously I, 2, 20 lays stress on the fact that the sârîra is not the antaryamin, because the Mâdhyandinas, as well as the Kanvas, speak of him in their texts as different (bhedena enam adhiyate), and in 22 the sârira and the pradhâna are referred to as the two others' (itarau) of whom the text predicates distinctive attributes separating them from the highest Lord. The word 'itara' (the other one) appears in several other passages (I, 1, 16; 1, 3, 16; II, 1, 21) as a kind of technical term denoting the individual soul in contradistinction from the Lord. The Sankaras indeed maintain that all those passages refer to an unreal distinction
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