But apart from any intention of arriving thereby at the meaning of the Sutras there, of course, remains for us the all-important question as to the true teaching of the Upanishads, a question which a translator of the Sutras and Sa@nkara cannot afford to pass over in silence, especially after reason has been shown for the conclusion that the Sutras and the Sa@nkara-bhashya do not agree concerning most important points of Vedantic doctrine.  The Sutras as well as the later commentaries claim, in the first place, to be nothing more than systematisations of the Upanishads, and for us a considerable part at least of their value and interest lies in this their nature.  Hence the further question presents itself by whom the teaching of the Upanishads has been most adequately systematised, whether by Badaraya/n/a, or Sa@nkara, or Ramanuja, or some other commentator.  This question requires to be kept altogether separate from the enquiry as to which commentator most faithfully renders the contents of the Sutras, and it is by no means impossible that Sa@nkara, for instance, should in the end have to be declared a more trustworthy guide with regard to the teaching of the Upanishads than concerning the meaning of the Sutras.

We must remark here at once that, whatever commentator may be found to deserve preference on the whole, it appears fairly certain already at the outset that none of the systems which Indian ingenuity has succeeded in erecting on the basis of the Upanishads can be accepted in its entirety.  The reason for this lies in the nature of the Upanishads themselves.  To the Hindu commentator and philosopher the Upanishads came down as a body of revealed truth whose teaching had, somehow or other, to be shown to be thoroughly consistent and free from contradictions; a system had to be devised in which a suitable place could be allotted to every one of the multitudinous statements which they make on the various points of Vedantic doctrine.  But to the European scholar, or in fact to any one whose mind is not bound by the doctrine of Sruti, it will certainly appear that all such attempts stand self-condemned.  If anything is evident even on a cursory review of the Upanishads—­and the impression so created is only strengthened by a more careful investigation—­it is that they do not constitute a systematic whole.  They themselves, especially the older ones, give the most unmistakable indications on that point.  Not only are the doctrines expounded in the different Upanishads ascribed to different teachers, but even the separate sections of one and the same Upanishad are assigned to different authorities.  It would be superfluous to quote examples of what a mere look at the Chandogya Upanishad, for instance, suffices to prove.  It is of course not impossible that even a multitude of teachers should agree in imparting precisely the same doctrine; but in the case of the Upanishads that is certainly not antecedently probable.  For, in the first place,