Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume VIII.djvu/37

 next Sûtra to refer to is IV, 1, 10. I shall not set forth the other relevant Sûtras here as in the preceding case. I only state that the three commentators, Sankara, Râmânuga, and Madhva, agree that the Gîtâ is here referred to, namely, chapter VI, stanza ii seq. Vallabha, however, I am bound to add, does not agree with this, as he interprets the Sûtra in question and those which precede and follow as referring to an entirely different matter. If I may be permitted to say so, however, I consider his interpretation not so satisfactory as that of the three other and older commentators. Lastly, we come to Sûtra IV, 2-19. On this, again, all the four commentators are unanimous, and they say that Gîtâ, chapter VIII, stanza 24 seq. (p. 80), is the authority referred to. And I think there can be very little doubt that they are right. These various pieces of evidence render it, I think, historically certain, that the Gîtâ must be considerably prior to the Vedânta-sûtras; and that the word Brahma-sûtras, which occurs at Gîtâ, chapter XIII, stanza 4 (p. 102), is correctly interpreted by the commentators as not referring to the Vedânta-sûtras, which are also called Brahma-sûtras, but to a different subject altogether. When were the Vedânta-sûtras composed? The question must at once be admitted to be a difficult one; but I think the following considerations will show that the date of those Sutras must, at the latest, be considerably earlier than the period which we have already reached in this part of our investigation. We may take it as fairly well settled, that Bhatta Kumârila, the celebrated commentator of the Pûrva Mîmâmsâ school, flourished not later than the end of the seventh century A considerable time prior to him must be placed the great commentator on the Mîmâmsâ-sûtras, namely, Sabarasyâmin. If we may judge from the style of his great commentary, he cannot have flourished much later than Patañgali, who may now be taken as historically proved to