Page:The Vedanta-sutras, with the Sri-bhashya of Ramanujacharya.djvu/63

 xlvi ANALYTICAL OUTLlNt OF CONTENTS.

At this point the Dhydna-niyoga-vadin anticipates the objection of the Bheddbhedavadins, according to whom there is no contradiction between distinction and non- distinction, and the Brahman is thus the seat of both dis- tinction and non-distinction at the same time. Every object that we perceive is suggestive of similarity as well as of diversity. When a thing is realised as the cause of another thing, there is the realisation of similarity or non-distinction between them ; for instance, when clay is made out to be the cause of a pot, we see that there is non-distinction between the clay and the pot. Similarly, when a thing is realised as representative of a genus, there is the realisation of non-distinction between that thing and the other things belonging to that genus. On the other hand, when a thing is realised independently in its condi- tion as an effect or in its condition as a particular individual, there is the realisation of distinction between it and other things. Thus it is nothing uncommon to realise the same thing as the seat of both distinction and non-distinction at the same time. In every process of recognition also there is the realisation of both distinction and non-distinction in relation to one and the same thing (pp. 309-31 1.). It cannot be maintained, however, that the commonly current superim- position of the idea of the self on the body indicates that there is both distinction and non-distinction between the body and the self ; because it is the unstultified idea alone which everywhere proves things. The idea of the serpent falsely perceived in a rope is soon stultified, and cannot prove any non-distinction as really existing between the serpent and the rope. Similarly the idea of the self arrived at in relation to the body is stultified, and cannot prove any non-distinction between the self and the body. Accord- ingly, the individual self is not absolutely distinct from the