of the Brhadara/n/yaka Brahman is referred to in terms which are strictly applicable to the individual soul only.  In connexion therewith the Sutras quote the views of three ancient teachers about the relation in which the individual soul stands to Brahman.  According to A/s/marathya (if we accept the interpretation of his view given by Sa@nkara and Sa@nkara’s commentators) the soul stands to Brahman in the bhedabheda relation, i.e. it is neither absolutely different nor absolutely non-different from it, as sparks are from fire.  Audulomi, on the other hand, teaches that the soul is altogether different from Brahman up to the time when obtaining final release it is merged in it, and Ka/s/ak/ri/tsna finally upholds the doctrine that the soul is absolutely non-different from Brahman; which, in, some way or other presents itself as the individual soul.

That the ancient teachers, the ripest outcome of whose speculations and discussions is embodied in the Vedanta-sutras, disagreed among themselves on points of vital importance is sufficiently proved by the three passages quoted.  The one quoted last is specially significant as showing that recognised authorities—­deemed worthy of being quoted in the Sutras—­denied that doctrine on which the whole system of Sa@nkara hinges, viz. the doctrine of the absolute identity of the individual soul with Brahman.

Turning next to the Sa@nkara-bhashya itself, we there also meet with indications that the Vedantins were divided among themselves on important points of dogma.  These indications are indeed not numerous:  Sa@nkara, does not on the whole impress one as an author particularly anxious to strengthen his own case by appeals to ancient authorities, a peculiarity of his which later writers of hostile tendencies have not failed to remark and criticise.  But yet more than once Sa@nkara also refers to the opinion of ‘another,’ viz., commentator of the Sutras, and in several places Sa@nkara’s commentators explain that the ‘other’ meant is the V/ri/ttikara (about whom more will be said shortly).  Those references as a rule concern minor points of exegesis, and hence throw little or no light on important differences of dogma; but there are two remarks of Sa@nkara’s at any rate which are of interest in this connexion.  The one is made with reference to Sutras 7-14 of the third pada of the fourth adhyaya; ‘some,’ he says there, ’declare those Sutras, which I look upon as setting forth the siddhanta view, to state merely the purvapaksha;’ a difference of opinion which, as we have seen above, affects the important question as to the ultimate fate of those who have not reached the knowledge of the highest Brahman.—­And under I, 3, 19 Sa@nkara, after having explained at length that the individual soul as such cannot claim any reality, but is real only in so far as it is identical with Brahman, adds the following words,