Page:The Vedanta-sutras, with the Sri-bhashya of Ramanujacharya.djvu/72

 ANALYTICAL OUTLINE OF CONTEXTS. Iv

Anandamaya. According to him the Anandamaya is not different from the Brahman who is the seat of joy, pleasure, satisfaction and bliss, all of which are described to be His constituent parts. The Brahman is of such a nature as distinguishes Him from all other things, He is the innermost essence of all and is called the Atman. The idea intended to be conveyed by the Adzvaitin is that the individual self is not essentially different from the Brah- man who is altogether one only without a second, and that this secondless Being is the Anandamaya. The Adzvaitin then meets a possible objection to the effect that the Ananda- maya may not be the Brahman, but may be something else; and he distinctly shews that the Anandamaya must not only mean the Brahman, but also must indicate that the Brahman is extremely different from pain, even as He is different from all things other than Himself. The differ- entiation of the individual selves from the Brahman and from each other is due to avid yd; otherwise there is no difference between the essential nature of the individual self and that of the Brahman. Viewed in relation to its essential nature the individual self deserves to be called the Anandamaya quite as much as the Brahman does ; and it is appropriate in the context to interpret the Ananda- maya as that individual self which is not in essence different from the Brahman (pp. 350-353.).

Thus both the SaAkhyas and the Adtvaitins maintain, in their own respective ways, that the Anandamaya is nothing other than the individual self. At this point it is shewn that the aphorism quoted above indicates clearly that the Anandamava must mean the Brahman, who is distinctly other than the individual self. The reason assigned for this is that, in the Taittiriya-Upanishad, there is a graded repetition of several kinds of bliss,