Page:The Vedanta-sutras, with the Sri-bhashya of Ramanujacharya.djvu/47

 be the complete knowledge of truth ; and obviously such an impossible knowledge of the oneness of the attributeless Brahman cannot be the remover of the avidyd postulated by the Adwaitins (pp. 227-238.).

The last difficulty pointed out by Ramanuja in the way ' of this theory of may a is called Nivnltyanupapalti '; and it points that the ' ignorance ' postulated by the Adwai- tins has to be irremovable. The individual soul's bondage of ' ignorance ' is determined by karma and is a concrete reality. It cannot therefore be removed by any abstract knowledge. Divine worship and divine grace can alone cause the freedom of the soul, and to know God is to seek salvation. According to the Adwaitins the differentiations of the knower, the knowledge, and the known thing are all unreal ; and even that knowledge which is capable of removing avidyd has to be unreal and has to stand in need of another real removing knowledge. Xor indeed can that ' knowledge ' which forms the essential nature of the Brahman constitute the knowledge, the birth of which means the destruction of avidyd. More- over the knower of this knowledge cannot be the unreal and superimposed individual self; nor can that knower be the Brahman, unless such knowership belongs to Him by nature and is not unreal. No knower will ever destroy himself as knower by means of the knowledge he knows, and the knowership of the Brahman cannot itself be equivalent to avidyd. For all these reasons the remov- al of the Adwaitins hypothetical 'ignorance' is quite impos- sible (pp. 238-241.).

Thus the Mahd-siddhdnta is brought to a close ; and it is concluded that, as mere ritualistic works yield only small and transitory results, the enquiry into the Brahman has necessarily to be conducted so that we may know how