Page:A history of Sanskrit literature (1900), Macdonell, Arthur Anthony.djvu/414

 (īçvara) who has created the world and grants salvation. The contradiction resulting from one and the same thing having form and no form, attributes and no attributes, is solved by the explanation that the lower Brahmā has no reality, but is merely an illusory form of the higher and only Brahma, produced by ignorance.

The doctrines of the Vedānta are laid down in the Brahma-sūtras of Bādarāyaṇa. This text-book, the meaning of which is not intelligible without the aid of a commentary, was expounded in his bhāshya by the famous Vedāntist philosopher, whose name is intimately connected with the revival of Brahmanism. He was born in 788 A.D., became an ascetic in 820, and probably lived to an advanced age. There is every likelihood that his expositions agree in all essentials with the meaning of the Brahma-sūtras. The full elaboration of the doctrine of Māyā, or cosmic illusion, is, however, due to him. An excellent epitome of the teachings of the Vedānta, as set forth by Çankara, is the Vedānta-sāra of Sadānanda Yogīndra. Its author departs from Çankara's views only in a few particulars, which show an admixture of Sānkhya doctrine.

Among the many commentaries on the Brahma-sūtras subsequent to Çankara, the most important is that of Rāmānuja, who lived in the earlier half of the twelfth century. This writer gives expression to the views of the Pāncharātras or Bhāgavatas, an old Vishnuite sect, whose doctrine, closely allied to Christian ideas, is expounded in the Bhagavadgītā and the Bhāgavata-purāṇa, as well as in the special text-books of the sect. The tenets of the Bhāgavatas, as set forth by Rāmānuja, diverge considerably from those of the Brahma-sūtras on which he is commenting. For, according