________________
cxiv
VEDÂNTA-SÛTRAS.
Vedanta, however valid the latter may be from a purely philosophic point of view.
We may refer to one more similar instance from the Khåndogya Upanishad. We there meet in III, 14 with one of the most famous vidyâs describing the nature of Brahman, called after its reputed author the Sandilya-vidya. This small vidyå is decidedly one of the finest and most characteristic texts; it would be difficult to point out another passage setting forth with greater force and eloquence and in an equally short compass the central doctrine of the Upanishads. Yet this text, which, beyond doubt, gives utterance to the highest conception of Brahman's nature that Sândilya's thought was able to reach, is by Sankara and his school again declared to form part of the lower vidyà only, because it represents Brahman as possessing qualities. It is, according to their terminology, not gñana, i.e. knowledge, but the injunction of a mere upâsana, a devout meditation on Brahman in so far as possessing certain definite attributes such as having light for its form, having true thoughts, and so on. The Râmânugas, on the other hand, quote this text with preference as clearly describing the nature of their highest, i.e. their one Brahman. We again allow that Sankara is free to deny that any text which ascribes qualities to Brahman embodies absolute truth; but we also again remark that there is no reason whatever for supposing that Sandilya, or whoever may have been the author of that vidyâ, looked upon it as anything else but a statement of the highest truth accessible to man.
We return to the question as to the true philosophy of the Upanishads, apart from the systems of the commentators.-From what precedes it will appear with sufficient distinctness that, if we understand by philosophy a philosophical system coherent in all its parts, free from all contradictions and allowing room for all the different statements made in all the chief Upanishads, a philosophy of the Upanishads cannot even be spoken of. The various lucubrations on Brahman, the world, and the human soul of which the Upanishads consist do not allow themselves to be systematised simply because they were never meant to
Digitized by Google
