Brahma Sutras (Shankaracharya)

by George Thibaut | 1890 | 203,611 words

English translation of the Brahma sutras (aka. Vedanta Sutras) with commentary by Shankaracharya (Shankara Bhashya): One of the three canonical texts of the Vedanta school of Hindu philosophy. The Brahma sutra is the exposition of the philosophy of the Upanishads. It is an attempt to systematise the various strands of the Upanishads which form the ...

28. Hereby all (the doctrines concerning the origin of the world which are opposed to the Vedānta) are explained, are explained.

The doctrine according to which the pradhāna is the cause of the world has, in the Sūtras beginning with I, 1, 5, been again and again brought forward and refuted. The chief reason for the special attention given to that doctrine is that the Vedānta-texts contain some passages which, to people deficient in mental penetration, may appear to contain inferential marks pointing to it. The doctrine, moreover, stands somewhat near to the Vedānta doctrine since, like the latter, it admits the non-difference of cause and effect, and it, moreover, has been accepted by some of the authors of the Dharma-sūtras, such as Devala, and so on. For all these reasons we have taken special trouble to refute the pradhāna doctrine, without paying much attention to the atomic and other theories. These latter theories, however, must likewise be refuted, as they also are opposed to the doctrine of Brahman being the general cause, and as slow-minded people might think that they also are referred to in some Vedic passages. Hence the Sūtrakāra formally extends, in the above Sūtra, the refutation already accomplished of the pradhāna doctrine to all similar doctrines which need not be demolished in detail after their great protagonist, the pradhāna doctrine, has been so completely disposed of. They also are, firstly, not founded on any scriptural authority; and are, secondly, directly contradicted by various Vedic passages.--The repetition of the phrase 'are explained' is meant to intimate that the end of the adhyāya has been reached.

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