The whole third adhyaya indeed of the B/ri/hadara/n/yaka affords ample proof of the artificial character of Sa@nkara’s attempts to show that the teaching of the Upanishads follows a definite system.  The eighth brahma/n/a, for instance, is said to convey the doctrine of the highest non-related Brahman, while the preceding brahma/n/as had treated only of I/s/vara in his various aspects.  But, as a matter of fact, brahma/n/a 8, after having, in section 8, represented Brahman as destitute of all qualities, proceeds, in the next section, to describe that very same Brahman as the ruler of the world, ’By the command of that Imperishable sun and moon stand apart,’ &c.; a clear indication that the author of the Upanishad does not distinguish a higher and lower Brahman in—­Sa@nkara’s sense.—­The preceding brahma/n/a (7) treats of the antaryamin, i.e.  Brahman viewed as the internal ruler of everything.  This, according to Sa@nkara, is the lower form of Brahman called I/s/vara; but we observe that the antaryamin as well as the so-called highest Brahman described in section 8 is, at the termination of the two sections, characterised by means of the very same terms (7, 23:  Unseen but seeing, unheard but hearing, &c.  There is no other seer but he, there is no other hearer but he, &c.; and 8, 11:  That Brahman is unseen but seeing, unheard but hearing, &c.  There is nothing that sees but it, nothing that hears but it, &c.).—­Nothing can be clearer than that all these sections aim at describing one and the same being, and know nothing of the distinctions made by the developed Vedanta, however valid the latter may be from a purely philosophic point of view.

We may refer to one more similar instance from the Chandogya Upanishad.  We there meet in III, 14 with one of the most famous vidyas describing the nature of Brahman, called after its reputed author the Sa/nd/ilya-vidya.  This small vidya 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 Sa/nd/ilya’s thought was able to reach, is by Sa@nkara and his school again declared to form part of the lower vidya only, because it represents Brahman as possessing qualities.  It is, according to their terminology, not j/n/ana, i.e. knowledge, but the injunction of a mere upasana, 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 Ramanujas, 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 Sa@nkara 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 Sa/nd/ilya, or whoever may have been the author of that vidya, looked upon it as anything else but a statement of the highest truth accessible to man.