________________
22
VEDÂNTA-SOTRAS.
Vedânta-texts . refer to devout meditation (upâsana) and similar actions which are mentioned in those very (Vedanta) texts. The result of all of which is that Scripture is not the source of Brahman.
To this argumentation the Satrakara replies as follows:
4. But that (Brahman is to be known from Scripture), because it is connected (with the Vedânta-texts) as their purport.
The word 'but' is meant to rebut the purva-paksha (the primâ facie view as urged above). That all-knowing, allpowerful Brahman, which is the cause of the origin, subsistence, and dissolution of the world, is known from the Vedanta-part of Scripture. How? Because in all the Vedanta-texts the sentences construe in so far as they have for their purport, as they intimate that matter (viz. Brahman). Compare, for instance, 'Being only this was in the beginning, one, without a second' (Kh. Up. VI, 2, 1);
In the beginning all this was Self, one only' (Ait. År. II, 4, I, I); This is the Brahman without cause and without effect, without anything inside or outside ; this Self is Brahman perceiving everything' (Bri. Up. II, 5, 19); That immortal Brahman is before' (Mu. Up. II, 2, II); and similar nassages. If the words contained in these passages have once been determined to refer to Brahman, and their purport is understood thereby, it would be improper to assume them to have a different sense : for that would involve the fault of abandoning the direct statements of the text in favour of mere assumptions. Nor can we conclude the purport of these passages to be the intimation of the nature of agents, divinities, &c. (connected with acts of religious duty); for there are certain scriptural passages which preclude all actions, actors, and fruits, as, for instance, Bri. Up. II, 4, 13,' Then by what should he see whom?' (which passage intimates that there is neither an agent, nor an object of action, nor an instrument.) Nor again can Brahman, though it is of the nature of an accomplished thing, be the object of perception and the other means of
Digitized by Google
