Regarding a small number of Sutras I have already (in the conspectus of contents) given it as my opinion that Ramanuja’s explanation appears to be more worthy of consideration.  We meet, in the first place, with a number of cases in which the two commentators agree as to the literal meaning of a Sutra, but where Sa@nkara sees himself reduced to the necessity of supplementing his interpretation by certain additions and reservations of his own for which the text gives no occasion, while Ramanuja is able to take the Sutra as it stands.  To exemplify this remark, I again direct attention to all those Sutras which in clear terms represent the individual soul as something different from the highest soul, and concerning which Sa@nkara is each time obliged to have recourse to the plea of the Sutra referring, not to what is true in the strict sense of the word, but only to what is conventionally looked upon as true.  It is, I admit, not altogether impossible that Sa@nkara’s interpretation should represent the real meaning of the Sutras; that the latter, indeed, to use the terms employed by Dr. Deussen, should for the nonce set forth an exoteric doctrine adapted to the common notions of mankind, which, however, can be rightly understood by him only to whose mind the esoteric doctrine is all the while present.  This is not impossible, I say; but it is a point which requires convincing proofs before it can be allowed.—­We have had, in the second place, to note a certain number of adhikara/n/as and Sutras concerning whose interpretation Sa@nkara and Ramanuja disagree altogether; and we have seen that not unfrequently the explanations given by the latter commentator appear to be preferable because falling in more easily with the words of the text.  The most striking instance of this is afforded by the 13th adhikara/n/a of II, 3, which treats of the size of the jiva, and where Ramanuja’s explanation seems to be decidedly superior to Sa@nkara’s, both if we look to the arrangement of the whole adhikara/n/a and to the wording of the single Sutras.  The adhikara/n/a is, moreover, a specially important one, because the nature of the view held as to the size of the individual soul goes far to settle the question what kind of Vedanta is embodied in Badaraya/n/a’s work.

But it will be requisite not only to dwell on the interpretations of a few detached Sutras, but to make the attempt at least of forming some opinion as to the relation of the Vedanta-sutras as a whole to the chief distinguishing doctrines of Sa@nkara as well as Ramanuja.  Such an attempt may possibly lead to very slender positive results; but in the present state of the enquiry even a merely negative result, viz. the conclusion that the Sutras do not teach particular doctrines found in them by certain commentators, will not be without its value.