Page:The Vedanta-sutras, with the Sri-bhashya of Ramanujacharya.djvu/44

 discussed, and it goes by the name of Nivartakdnup&paUt. This difficulty is in relation to the idea that the cessation of avidya or 'ignorance' takes place solely by means of the knowledge which has the attributeless Brahman for its object ; and it is at first pointed out here that there are many scriptural passages, which do not teach the Brahman to be attributeless and unqualified, but teach on the contrary that He is possessed of attributes and qualities. Then it is shewn that the grammatical equations found in the sentence ' That thou art' and in other similar sentences do not denote the oneness of any attributeless thing, in as much as every grammatical equation has to denote a thing which, while being only one, is capable of existing in two forms. It cannot be established that the grammatical equation in 'That thou art' is intended to give rise to the stultification of any illusion due to avidya ; it simply shows the Brahman to be capable of existing in two different modes or forms. On this supposition alone can all the scriptural passages be harmoniously interpreted (pp. 210-214.). The universe is the body of which the Brahman is the Soul, and Vcdantic passages clearly declare that all things have acquired the character of being things and of being expressible by .means of words, only by reason of their having been entered into by the individual selves which are, in their turn, entered into by the Brahman as forming their Self. Thus the totality of all the intelligent and the non-intelligent beings becomes the same as the Brahman on account of the relation of the body and the soul existing between them (pp. 214-217). A grammatical equation can denote neither an absolute identity nor an absolute and discrete dissimilarity between the things mentioned therein. Hence those who maintain that there is only one attributeless -thing in the