Page:The Vedanta-sutras, with the Sri-bhashya of Ramanujacharya.djvu/74

 ANALYTICAL OUTLINE OF CONTENTS. Ivii

self, but must denote the Brahman who is other than the individual self (pp. 354-358.).

Then this other position of the Purvapakshins that, because the Being, who is declared to be the cause world, is, in a numbe. 1( of scriptural passages, seen to be grammatically equated with the individual self, the Anandamaya has to be the S5<vhe as the individual self is taken up for consi- deration and criticism. The individual self is, no doubt, an intelligent being ; but that being cannot have the power of creating, preserving, and destroying the world in accord- ance with his own will. The scripture and the Sutrakara are both agreed on this point, and the individual self is essentially different from the Brahman. The grammatical equation between the Brahman and the individual self cannot denote that both of them are essentially the same ; it is indeed impossible for the all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good Brahman to be essentially the same as the ignorant, weak, and impure individual self. Nor can it be maintained reasonably that a grammatical equation is appropriate only when either of the two equated things in it is taken to be false ; for, in the case of the Brahman and the individual self equated with each other, it is not easy to decide to which of them such a falsity belongs. Of course the Brahman is not unreal. The individual self may be so, on the supposition that the Brahman appears falsely as the individual self owing to the superimposition of avidyd ; but this would make the Brahman contradict Himself. This supposition cannot be forced on us to make the grammatical equations in the scripture significant ; for, what is inappropriate and opposed to reason should not be assumed even for the purpose of making the scripture ap- propriate. This supposed association of the Brahman with evil cannot at all be a reality; and if it be held that His H