The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 748 pages of information about The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya.

The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 748 pages of information about The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya.
from the material cause.  On the other hand, effects are not non-different from their operative causes; for we know from ordinary experience that the carpenter, for instance, is different from the house he has built.—­The illustrative example referred to is the one mentioned (Ch.  Up.  VI, 1, 4), ’My dear, as by one clod of clay all that is made of clay is known, the modification (i.e. the effect) being a name merely which has its origin in speech, while the truth is that it is clay merely;’ which passage again has reference to the material cause.  The text adds a few more illustrative instances of similar nature, ’As by one nugget of gold all that is made of gold is known; as by one pair of nail-scissors all that is made of iron is known.’—­Similar promissory statements are made in other places also, for instance, ’What is that through which if it is known everything else becomes known?’ (Mu.  Up.  I, 1, 3.) An illustrative instance also is given in the same place, ‘As plants grow on the earth’ (I, 1, 7).—­Compare also the promissory statement in B/ri/.  Up.  IV, 5, 6, ’When the Self has been seen, heard, perceived, and known, then all this is known;’ and the illustrative instance quoted (IV, 5, 8), ’Now as the sounds of a drum if beaten cannot be seized externally, but the sound is seized when the drum is seized or the beater of the drum.’—­Similar promissory statements and illustrative instances which are to be found in all Vedanta-texts are to be viewed as proving, more or less, that Brahman is also the material cause of the world.  The ablative case also in the passage, ‘That from whence (yata/h/) these beings are born,’ has to be considered as indicating the material cause of the beings, according to the grammatical rule, Pa/n/.  I, 4, 30.—­That Brahman is at the same time the operative cause of the world, we have to conclude from the circumstance that there is no other guiding being.  Ordinarily material causes, indeed, such as lumps of clay and pieces of gold, are dependent, in order to shape themselves into vessels and ornaments, on extraneous operative causes such as potters and goldsmiths; but outside Brahman as material cause there is no other operative cause to which the material cause could look; for Scripture says that previously to creation Brahman was one without a second.—­The absence of a guiding principle other than the material cause can moreover be established by means of the argument made use of in the Sutra, viz. accordance with the promissory statements and the illustrative examples.  If there were admitted a guiding principle different from the material cause, it would follow that everything cannot be known through one thing, and thereby the promissory statements as well as the illustrative instances would be stultified.—­The Self is thus the operative cause, because there is no other ruling principle, and the material cause because there is no other substance from which the world could originate.

24.  And on account of the statement of reflection (on the part of the Self).

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The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.