Thus there are many various opinions, basing part of them on sound arguments and scriptural texts, part of them on fallacious arguments and scriptural texts misunderstood[60].  If therefore a man would embrace some one of these opinions without previous consideration, he would bar himself from the highest beatitude and incur grievous loss.  For this reason the first Sutra proposes, under the designation of an enquiry into Brahman, a disquisition of the Vedanta-texts, to be carried on with the help of conformable arguments, and having for its aim the highest beatitude.

So far it has been said that Brahman is to be enquired into.  The question now arises what the characteristics of that Brahman are, and the reverend author of the Sutras therefore propounds the following aphorism.

2. (Brahman is that) from which the origin, &c. (i.e. the origin, subsistence, and dissolution) of this (world proceed).

The term, &c. implies subsistence and re-absorption.  That the origin is mentioned first (of the three) depends on the declaration of Scripture as well as on the natural development of a substance.  Scripture declares the order of succession of origin, subsistence, and dissolution in the passage, Taitt.  Up.  III, 1, ‘From whence these beings are born,’ &c.  And with regard to the second reason stated, it is known that a substrate of qualities can subsist and be dissolved only after it has entered, through origination, on the state of existence.  The words ‘of this’ denote that substrate of qualities which is presented to us by perception and the other means of right knowledge; the genitive case indicates it to be connected with origin, &c.  The words ‘from which’ denote the cause.  The full sense of the Sutra therefore is:  That omniscient omnipotent cause from which proceed the origin, subsistence, and dissolution of this world—­which world is differentiated by names and forms, contains many agents and enjoyers, is the abode of the fruits of actions, these fruits having their definite places, times, and causes[61], and the nature of whose arrangement cannot even be conceived by the mind,—­that cause, we say, is Brahman.  Since the other forms of existence (such as increase, decline, &c.) are included in origination, subsistence, and dissolution, only the three latter are referred to in the Sutra.  As the six stages of existence enumerated by Yaska[62] are possible only during the period of the world’s subsistence, it might—­were they referred to in the Sutra—­be suspected that what is meant are not the origin, subsistence, and dissolution (of the world) as dependent on the first cause.  To preclude this suspicion the Sutra is to be taken as referring, in addition to the world’s origination from Brahman, only to its subsistence in Brahman, and final dissolution into Brahman.

The origin, &c. of a world possessing the attributes stated above cannot possibly proceed from anything else but a Lord possessing the stated qualities; not either from a non-intelligent pradhana[63], or from atoms, or from non-being, or from a being subject to transmigration[64]; nor, again, can it proceed from its own nature (i.e. spontaneously, without a cause), since we observe that (for the production of effects) special places, times, and causes have invariably to be employed.