Page:The Vedanta-sutras, with the Sri-bhashya of Ramanujacharya.djvu/83

 Ixvi ANALYTICAL OUTLINE OF CONTENTS.

and consists only of two aphorisms. This and the follow- ing four adhikaranas, belonging to the first part of the first chapter of the Vedanta-Si'itras, are intended to estab- lish that the Brahman is different from certain particular non-intelligent entities,as also from the Sun, Prajapati,Indra and other such individual selves, who have attained god- hood and are in possession of peculiarly valuable merit due to their respective karmas. The first aphorism of the Antaradhikarana says that the Person, who is declared in the scripture to be within the Sun and within the eye, is the Brahman Himself, in as much as such attributes as belong only to the Brahman are seen to be applied to that Person. The Sankhyas are again the Pftrvapakshins here, and point out that this person is declared to be, like an in- dividual self, associated with a body ; and they contend that individual selves themselves may, through the accu- mulated merit of their karmas, acquire omniscience, omni- potence, and all the other sovereignties which are attributed to the Brahman, and that there need be nothing called the Supreme Self as distinct from the individual self. Ac- cording to them it is only a highly meritorious individual self that is the person within the Sun and within the eye (pp. 400-402.). In answer to the Sdtikhyas it is first pointed out that "This same above-mentioned Person is risen above all sins," and that to be so free from sin is to be free from all subjection to the influence of karma. No individual self is, by nature, free from the influence of karma ; and the Brahman's freedom from the influence of karma is indeed the basis of all the auspicious qualities and sovereignties that are attributed to Him as being natural to Him. To possess these things thus, it is altogether impossible for any individual self. Therefore the Person within the eye and within the Sun cannot be an individual self. That this