Page:The Vedanta-sutras, with the Sri-bhashya of Ramanujacharya.djvu/81

 Ixiv ANALYTICAL OUTLINE OF CONTENTS.

and that therefore the Anandamaya cannot be the indivi- dual self. The Brahman is the object to be attained by the individual self who is the worshipper, and the object of worship cannot be the same as the worshipper (pp. 391- 392.). The next aphorism gives another reason why the Anandamaya cannot be the individual self ; and that is that there is inappropriateness in supposing that the Anandamaya is any thing other than the Supreme Self. It may be maintained by a Purvapakshin that, although it is true that a worshipper's object of attainment is necessa- rily different from the worshipper himself, here the Brah- man, denoted by the words of the mantra referred to above, is not a different thing from the individual self. The mantra is intended to teach that the Brahman and the individual self are both one and the same, and that both of them have the same essential nature of attributeless and undifferentiated intelligence. Therefore the Anandamaya denotes only this essential nature of the individual self. The inappropiiateness in maintaining a position like this is that unconditioned omniscience will have to be attributed to the individual self, which has no omniscience at all in its bound condition of samsara. Even the released indi- vidual self cannot have such unconditioned omniscience as can 'see' and think in many ways, so as to create the world thereby, and make the Brahman manifold. Accordingly the Anandamaya has to denote the Brahman, who is the Su- preme Self and is other than the individual self. That speech and mind cannot grasp the Brahman does not mean that He is really attributeless, in spite of the scrip- ture attributing to Him innumerable auspicious qualities ; it only means that speech and mind cannot prove Him. It is said that the unsurpassable Bliss of the Brahman may be known, and that to know it is to cease to have any fear