Page:The Vedanta-sutras, with the Sri-bhashya of Ramanujacharya.djvu/67

 1 ANALYTICAL OUTLINE OF CONTENTS.

it may denote the Pradhana ^ in as much as, whatever thing and whatever general nature thereof exist in the condition of a cause, that same thing and that same nature thereof have to exist also in the condition of an effect, and in as much as the world which is a produced effect and is hence made up of the qualities of saliva, rajas and tamas cannot therefore have the non-material 'qua- lity-less' Brahman for its cause. If the undifferentiated Pradhana- is not taken to be the cause of the world, it is impossible to understand how, by knowing a certain single thing, all things become known, as it is declared in the scripture ; and it is impossible also to understand why the statement relating to the cause of the world is, as given in the C/ihandogya- Upanishad, in the form of a proposition and an illustration. In reply to such a supposition it is pointed out in the first of the eight aphorisms of this Adhikarana that the Existence spoken of as the cause of the world cannot be the Pradhana, because the activity of seeing and thinking is predicated in relation to it. There is no doubt that the cause has necessarily to be in natural conformity with the effect ; and the Highest Per- son who owns all the intelligent and the non-intelligent things in their subtle state as His body is certainly in natural conformity with all produced effects, as taught in the Upanishad s and as maintained by the Sfitrakara him- self. The passage dealing with the cause of the world in the Qhhandogy } a- Upanishad is not really in the form of a syllogism, as the middle term is altogether wanting ; and hence it surely cannot be that that passage mentions the logically inferrible Pradhana to be the cause of the world (pp. 329-334.). The second aphorism in the Adhikarana is intended to show that the activity of 'seeing ' predicated in relation to the Sat which forms the cause of the worlcl