Part 21

We read in the text of the Taittirîyas, 'Different from this Self, which consists of Understanding, is the other inner Self which consists of bliss' (Taitt. Up. II, 5).--Here the doubt arises whether the Self consisting of bliss be the highest Self, which is different from the inner Self subject to bondage and release, and termed 'jîva.' (i.e. living self or individual soul), or whether it be that very inner Self, i.e. the jîva.--It _is_ that inner Self, the Pûrvapakshin contends. For the text says 'of that this, i.e. the Self consisting of bliss, is the sârîra Self'; and sârîra means that which is joined to a body, in other words, the so-called jîva.--But, an objection is raised, the text enumerates the different Selfs, beginning with the Self consisting of bliss, to the end that man may obtain the bliss of Brahman, which was, at the outset, stated to be the cause of the world (II, 1), and in the end teaches that the Self consisting of bliss is the cause of the world (II, 6). And that the cause of the world is the all-knowing Lord, since Scripture says of him that 'he thought,' we have already explained.-- That cause of the world, the Pûrvapakshin rejoins, is not different from the jîva; for in the text of the Chândogyas that Being which first is described as the creator of the world is exhibited, in two passages, in co-ordination with the jîva ('having entered into them with that living Self' and 'Thou art that, O Svetaketu'). And the purport of co- ordination is to express oneness of being, as when we say, 'This person here is that Devadatta we knew before.' And creation preceded by thought can very well be ascribed to an intelligent jîva. The connexion of the whole Taittirîya-text then is as follows. In the introductory clause, 'He who knows Brahman attains the Highest,' the true nature of the jîva, free from all connexion with matter, is referred to as something to be attained; and of this nature a definition is given in the words, 'The True, knowledge, the Infinite is Brahman.' The attainment of the jîva in this form is what constitutes Release, in agreement with the text, 'So long as he is in the body he cannot get free from pleasure and pain; but when he is free from the body then neither pleasure nor pain touches him' (Ch. Up. VIII, 12, 1). This true nature of the Self, free from all avidyâ, which the text begins by presenting as an object to be attained, is thereupon declared to be the Self consisting of bliss. In order to lead up to this--just as a man points out to another the moon by first pointing out the branch of a tree near which the moon is to be seen--the text at first refers to the body ('Man consists of food'); next to the vital breath with its five modifications which is within the body and supports it; then to the manas within the vital breath; then to the buddhi within the manas--'the Self consisting of breath'; 'the Self consisting of mind' (manas); 'the Self consisting of understanding' (vijñâna). Having thus gradually led up to the jîva, the text finally points out the latter, which is the innermost of all ('Different from that is the inner Self which consists of bliss'), and thus completes the series of Selfs one inside the other. We hence conclude that the Self consisting of bliss is that same jîva-self which was at the outset pointed out as the Brahman to be attained.--But the clause immediately following, 'Brahman is the tail, the support (of the Self of bliss'), indicates that Brahman is something different from the Self of bliss!-- By no means (the Pûrvapakshin rejoins). Brahman is, owing to its different characteristics, there compared to an animal body, and head, wings, and tail are ascribed to it, just as in a preceding clause the body consisting of food had also been imagined as having head, wings, and tail--these members not being something different from the body, but the body itself. Joy, satisfaction, great satisfaction, bliss, are imagined as the members, non-different from it, of Brahman consisting of bliss, and of them all the unmixed bliss-constituted Brahman is said to be the tail or support. If Brahman were something different from the Self consisting of bliss, the text would have continued, 'Different from this Self consisting of bliss is the other inner Self--Brahman.' But there is no such continuation. The connexion of the different clauses stands as follows: After Brahman has been introduced as the topic of the section ('He who knows Brahman attains the Highest'), and defined as different in nature from everything else ('The True, knowledge'), the text designates it by the term 'Self,' &c. ('From that Self sprang ether'), and then, in order to make it clear that Brahman is the innermost Self of all, enumerates the pranamaya and so on--designating them in succession as more and more inward Selfs--, and finally leads up to the ânandamaya as the innermost Self('Different from this, &c., is the Self consisting of bliss'). From all which it appears that the term 'Self' up to the end denotes the Brahman mentioned at the beginning.-- But, in immediate continuation of the clause, 'Brahman is the tail, the support,' the text exhibits the following sloka: 'Non-existing becomes he who views Brahman as non-existing; who knows Brahman as existing, him we know as himself existing.' Here the existence and non-existence of the Self are declared to depend on the knowledge and non-knowledge of Brahman, not of the Self consisting of bliss. Now no doubt can possibly arise as to the existence or non-existence of this latter Self, which, in the form of joy, satisfaction, &c., is known to every one. Hence the sloka cannot refer to that Self, and hence Brahman is different from that Self.--This objection, the Pûrvapakshin rejoins, is unfounded. In the earlier parts of the chapter we have corresponding slokas, each of them following on a preceding clause that refers to the tail or support of a particular Self: in the case, e.g. of the Self consisting of food, we read, 'This is the tail, the support,' and then comes the sloka, 'From food are produced all creatures,' &c. Now it is evident that all these slokas are meant to set forth not only what had been called 'tail,' but the entire Self concerned (Self of food, Self of breath, &c.); and from this it follows that also the sloka, 'Non-existing becomes he,' does not refer to the 'tail' only as something other than the Self of bliss, but to the entire Self of bliss. And there may very well be a doubt with regard to the knowledge or non-knowledge of the existence of that Self consisting of unlimited bliss. On your view also the circumstance of Brahman which forms the tail not being known is due to its being of the nature of limitless bliss. And should it be said that the Self of bliss cannot be Brahman because Brahman does not possess a head and other members; the answer is that Brahman also does not possess the quality of being a tail or support, and that hence Brahman cannot be a tail.--Let it then be said that the expression, 'Brahman is the tail,' is merely figurative, in so far as Brahman is the substrate of all things imagined through avidyâ!--But, the Pûrvapakshin rejoins, we may as well assume that the ascription to Brahman of joy, as its head and so on, is also merely figurative, meant to illustrate the nature of Brahman, i.e. the Self of bliss as free from all pain. To speak of Brahman or the Self as consisting of bliss has thus the purpose of separating from all pain and grief that which in a preceding clause ('The True, knowledge, the Infinite is Brahman') had already been separated from all changeful material things. As applied to Brahman (or the Self), whose nature is nothing but absolute bliss, the term 'ânandamaya' therefore has to be interpreted as meaning nothing more than 'ânanda'; just as prânamaya means prâna.

The outcome of all this is that the term 'ânandamaya' denotes the true essential nature--which is nothing but absolute uniform bliss--of the jiva that appears as distinguished by all the manifold individualising forms which are the figments of Nescience. The Self of bliss is the jîva or pratyag-âtman, i.e. the individual soul.

Against this primâ facie view the Sûtrakâra contends that the Self consisting of bliss is the highest Self 'on account of multiplication.'-- The section which begins with the words,'This is an examination of bliss,' and terminates with the sloka, 'from whence all speech turns back' (Taitt. Up. II, 8), arrives at bliss, supreme and not to be surpassed, by successively multiplying inferior stages of bliss by a hundred; now such supreme bliss cannot possibly belong to the individual soul which enjoys only a small share of very limited happiness, mixed with endless pain and grief; and therefore clearly indicates, as its abode, the highest Self, which differs from all other Selfs in so far as being radically opposed to all evil and of an unmixed blessed nature. The text says, 'Different from this Self consisting of understanding (vijñâna) there is the inner Self consisting of bliss'. Now that which consists of understanding (vijñâna) is the individual soul (jîva), not the internal organ (buddhi) only; for the formative element, 'maya,' ('consisting of'; in vijñânamaya) indicates a difference (between vijñâna and vijñânamaya). The term 'prâna-maya' ('consisting of breath') we explain to mean 'prâna' only, because no other explanation is possible; but as vijñânamaya may be explained as,--jîva, we have no right to neglect 'maya' as unmeaning. And this interpretation is quite suitable, as the soul in the states of bondage and release alike is a 'knowing' subject. That moreover even in 'prânamaya', and so on, the affix 'maya' may be taken as having a meaning will be shown further on.--But how is it then that in the sloka which refers to the vijñânamaya, 'Understanding (vijñâna) performs the sacrifice', the term 'vijñâna' only is used?--The essential nature, we reply, of the knowing subject is suitably called 'knowledge', and this term is transferred to the knowing subject itself which is defined as possessing that nature. For we generally see that words which denote attributes defining the essential nature of a thing also convey the notion of the essential nature of the thing itself. This also accounts for the fact that the sloka ('Vijñâna performs the sacrifice, it performs all sacred acts') speaks of vijñâna as being the agent in sacrifices and so on; the buddhi alone could not be called an agent. For this reason the text does not ascribe agency to the other Selfs (the prânamaya and so on) which are mentioned before the vijñânamaya; for they are non-intelligent instruments of intelligence, and the latter only can be an agent. With the same view the text further on (II, 6), distinguishing the intelligent and the non-intelligent by means of their different characteristic attributes, says in the end 'knowledge and non-knowledge,' meaning thereby that which possesses the attribute of knowledge and that which does not. An analogous case is met with in the so-called antaryâmi-brâhmana (Bri. Up. III. 7). There the Kânvas read, 'He who dwells in knowledge' (vijñâna; III, 7, 16), but instead of this the Mâdhyandinas read 'he who dwells in the Self,' and so make clear that what the Kânvas designate as 'knowledge' really is the knowing Self.--That the word vijñâna, although denoting the knowing Self, yet has a neuter termination, is meant to denote it as something substantial. We hence conclude that he who is different from the Self consisting of knowledge, i.e. the individual Self, is the highest Self which consists of bliss.

It is true indeed that the sloka, 'Knowledge performs the sacrifice, 'directly mentions knowledge only, not the knowing Self; all the same we have to understand that what is meant is the latter, who is referred to in the clause, 'different from this is the inner Self which consists of knowledge.' This conclusion is supported by the sloka referring to the Self which consists of food (II, 2); for that sloka refers to food only, 'From food are produced all creatures,' &c., all the same the preceding clause 'this man consists of the essence of food' does not refer to food, but to an effect of it which consists of food. Considering all this the Sûtrakâra himself in a subsequent Sûtra (I, 1, 18) bases his view on the declaration, in the scriptural text, of difference.--We now turn to the assertion, made by the Pûrvapakshin, that the cause of the world is not different from the individual soul because in two Chândogya passages it is exhibited in co-ordination with the latter ('having entered into them with this living Self,' 'Thou art that'); and that hence the introductory clause of the Taitt. passage ('He who knows Brahman reaches the Highest') refers to the individual soul--which further on is called 'consisting of bliss,' because it is free from all that is not pleasure.-- This view cannot be upheld; for although the individual soul is intelligent, it is incapable of producing through its volition this infinite and wonderful Universe--a process described in texts such as 'It thought, may I be many, may I grow forth.--It sent forth fire,' &c. That even the released soul is unequal to such 'world business' as creation, two later Sûtras will expressly declare. But, if you deny that Brahman, the cause of the world, is identical with the individual soul, how then do you account for the co-ordination in which the two appear in the Chândogya texts?--How, we ask in return, can Brahman, the cause of all, free from all shadow of imperfection, omniscient, omnipotent, &c. &c., be one with the individual soul, all whose activities--whether it be thinking, or winking of an eye, or anything else--depend on karman, which implies endless suffering of various kind?--If you reply that this is possible if one of two things is unreal, we ask--which then do you mean to be unreal? Brahman's connexion with what is evil?--or its essential nature, owing to which it is absolutely good and antagonistic to all evil?--You will perhaps reply that, owing to the fact of Brahman, which is absolutely good and antagonistic to all evil, being the substrate of beginningless Nescience, there presents itself the false appearance of its being connected with evil. But there you maintain what is contradictory. On the one side there is Brahman's absolute perfection and antagonism to all evil; on the other it is the substrate of Nescience, and thereby the substrate of a false appearance which is involved in endless pain; for to be connected with evil means to be the substrate of Nescience and the appearance of suffering which is produced thereby. Now it is a contradiction to say that Brahman is connected with all this and at the same time antagonistic to it!--Nor can we allow you to say that there is no real contradiction because that appearance is something false. For whatever is false belongs to that group of things contrary to man's true interest, for the destruction of which the Vedânta-texts are studied. To be connected with what is hurtful to man, and to be absolutely perfect and antagonistic to all evil is self- contradictory.--But, our adversary now rejoins, what after all are we to do? The holy text at first clearly promises that through the cognition of one thing everything will be known ('by which that which is not heard _is_ heard,' &c., Ch. Up. VI, 1, 3); thereupon declares that Brahman is the sole cause of the world ('Being only this was in the beginning'), and possesses exalted qualities such as the power of realising its intentions ('it thought, may I be many'); and then finally, by means of the co-ordination, 'Thou art that' intimates that Brahman is one with the individual soul, which we know to be subject to endless suffering! Nothing therefore is left to us but the hypothesis that Brahman is the substrate of Nescience and all that springs from it!--Not even for the purpose, we reply, of making sense of Scripture may we assume what in itself is senseless and contradictory!--Let us then say that Brahman's connexion with evil is real, and its absolute perfection unreal!-- Scripture, we reply, aims at comforting the soul afflicted by the assaults of threefold pain, and now, according to you, it teaches that the assaults of suffering are real, while its essential perfection and happiness are unreal figments, due to error! This is excellent comfort indeed!--To avoid these difficulties let us then assume that both aspects of Brahman--viz. on the one hand its entering into the distressful condition of individual souls other than non-differenced intelligence, and on the other its being the cause of the world, endowed with all perfections, &c.--are alike unreal!--Well, we reply, we do not exactly admire the depth of your insight into the connected meaning of texts. The promise that through the knowledge of one thing everything will be known can certainly not be fulfilled if everything is false, for in that case there exists nothing that could be known. In so far as the cognition of one thing has something real for its object, and the cognition of all things is of the same kind, and moreover is comprised in the cognition of one thing; in so far it can be said that everything is known through one thing being known. Through the cognition of the real shell we do not cognise the unreal silver of which the shell is the substrate.--Well, our adversary resumes, let it then be said that the meaning of the declaration that through the cognition of one thing everything is to be known is that only non-differenced Being is real, while everything else is unreal.--If this were so, we rejoin, the text would not say, 'by which the non-heard is heard, the non-known is known'; for the meaning of this is, 'by which when heard and known' (not 'known as false') 'the non-heard is heard,' &c. Moreover, if the meaning were that only the one non-differenced substance understood to be the cause of the world is real, the illustrative instance, 'As by one lump of clay everything made of clay is known,' would not be suitable; for what is meant there is that through the cognition of the (real) lump of clay its (real) effects are known. Nor must 'you say that in the illustrative instance also the unreality of the effect is set forth; for as the person to be informed is not in any way convinced at the outset that things made of clay are unreal, like the snake imagined in the rope, it is impossible that such unreality should be referred to as if it were something well known (and the clause, 'as by one lump of clay,' &c., undoubtedly _does_ refer to something well known), in order to render the initial assertion plausible. And we are not aware of any means of knowledge--assisted or non-assisted by ratiocination--that would prove the non-reality of things effected, previous to the cognition produced by texts such as 'That art thou'; a point which will be discussed at length under II, 1.--'Being only this was in the beginning, one, without a second'; 'it thought, may I be many, may I grow forth; it sent forth fire'; 'Let me now enter those three beings with this living Self and evolve names and forms'; 'All these creatures, my son, have their root in the True, they dwell in the True, they rest in the True,' &c.; these passages declare in succession that that which really is is the Self of this world; that previous to creation there is no distinction of names and forms; that for the creation of the world Brahman, termed 'the True' (or 'Real'), requires no other operative cause but itself; that at the time of creation it forms a resolution, possible to itself only, of making itself manifold in the form of endless movable and immovable things; that in accordance with this resolution there takes place a creation, proceeding in a particular order, of an infinite number of manifold beings; that by Brahman entering into all non-intelligent beings with the living soul--which has its Self in Brahman--there takes place an evolution, infinite in extent, of all their particular names and forms; and that everything different from Brahman has its root and abode in that, is moved by that, lives by that, rests on that. All the different points--to be learned from Scripture only--which are here set forth agree with what numerous other scriptural texts teach about Brahman, viz. that it is free from all evil, devoid of all imperfection, all-knowing, all-powerful; that all its wishes and purposes realise themselves; that it is the cause of all bliss; that it enjoys bliss not to be surpassed. To maintain then that the word 'that,' which refers back to the Brahman mentioned before, i.e. a Brahman possessing infinite attributes, should aim at conveying instruction about a substance devoid of all attributes, is as unmeaning as the incoherent talk of a madman.

The word 'thou' again denotes the individual soul as distinguished by its implication in the course of transmigratory existence, and the proper sense of this term also would have to be abandoned if it were meant to suggest a substance devoid of all distinctions. And that, in the case of a being consisting of non-differenced light, obscuration by Nescience would be tantamount to complete destruction, we have already explained above.--All this being thus, your interpretation would involve that the proper meaning of the two words 'that' and 'thou'--which refer to one thing--would have to be abandoned, and both words would have to be taken in an implied sense only.