Page:The Vedanta-sutras, with the Sri-bhashya of Ramanujacharya.djvu/69

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ANALYTICAL OUTLINE OF CONTENTS.

non-intelligent matter cannot give rise to the intelligent individual souls, and cannot be their cause ; and hence, by knowing it, all things cannot become known (page 338.). The next aphorism is based on a passage in the Qihdndogya-Upanishad (VI. 8. i.), in which it is declared that a sleeping person is in union with the Sat, and that while asleep he withdraws into his own cause and is also absorbed into his own cause. Here the Sal is the cause into which its effect, namely, the indi- vidual self withdraws ; and the non-intelligent Pradhana does not deserve to be the cause of the individual self. Until final release takes place the individual self is asso- ciated with names and forms ; in moksha and at the time of deep sleep he is embraced by the Brahman and gives up names and forms. It is thus that he withdraws into his own cause, and the Sal has therefore to be the Brahman (pp. 339-341.)- The next aphorism maintains that the cause of the world cannot be the Pradhana, because the Sal which is mentioned here as the cause must have the same meaning as whatever is elsewhere in the scripture declared to be the world's cause. In a number of scriptural passages the Lord of All is taught to be the cause of the world, and this causal Sal cannot therefore be other than the Lord (pp. 341-342.). The last aphorism of the Adhikarana says that more than all it is actually revealed in the Qihdndogya and other Upanishads that the Supreme Self is the cause of the universe, and that the causal Sal cannot at all mean in consequence any thing other than that Supreme Self, who is the Highest Person and is also the Brahman that has to be enquired into in the Veddnta. In conclusion it is pointed out at the end of this Adhikarana that the import of it as a whole is against the position of the A dwaitins, according to which