{"collection":"Hinduism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/hin/sbe38/sbe38181.htm","path":"hin/sbe38/sbe38181.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/hin/sbe38/sbe38181.htm","text":"The Vedanta Sutras of Badarayana, Commentary by Sankara (SBE38), tr. by George Thibaut [1896]\n38. For the True and so on are one and the same (vidy\u00e2).\nThe text of the V\u00e2gasaneyaka, after having enjoined the knowledge of the True, together with a meditation on the syllables of its name ('Whosoever knows this great glorious first-born as the true Brahman,' &c., Bri. Up. V, 4, 1), continues, 'Now what is the True, that is the \u00c2ditya, the person that dwells in yonder orb, and the person in the right eye' (V, 5, 2).--The doubt here arises whether the text enjoins two vidy\u00e2s of the True or one only.\nTwo, the p\u00fbrvapakshin maintains. For the text declares two different results, one in the earlier passage, 'He conquers these worlds' (V, 4, 1); the other one later on. 'He destroys evil and leaves it' (V, 5, 3). And what our opponent may call a reference to the subject-matter under discussion, 1 is merely due to the circumstance of the object of meditation being the same (in the two vidy\u00e2s).\nTo this we make the following reply.--There is only one vidy\u00e2 of the True, because the clause, 'That which is the True,' &c., refers back to that True which is treated\nof in V, 4.--But has not the p\u00fbrvapakshin shown that the clause alluded to can be accounted for even on the supposition of there being two vidy\u00e2s?--The reasoning of the p\u00fbrvapakshin, we reply, would be admissible only if the separateness of the two vidy\u00e2s were established by some other clear and undoubted reason; in our ease, however, there is a general possibility of both (viz. of the vidy\u00e2s being separate or not), and the very circumstance that the mentioned clause contains a back reference to the True spoken of in V, 4, determines us to conclude that there is only one vidy\u00e2 of the True.--To the remark that there must be two vidy\u00e2s because the text states two different results, we reply that the statement of a second result merely has the purpose of glorifying the new instruction given about the True, viz. that its secret names are ahar and aham. Moreover, as in the case under discussion, the fruit of the vidy\u00e2 has really to be supplied from its arthav\u00e2da part 1, and as there is unity of vidy\u00e2, all those fruits which the text states in connexion with the single parts of the vidy\u00e2 are to be combined and put in connexion with the vidy\u00e2 taken as a whole.--The conclusion therefore is that the text records only one vidy\u00e2 of the True, distinguished by such and such details, and that hence all the qualities mentioned, such as Truth and so on, are to be comprehended in one act of meditation.\nSome commentators are of opinion that the above S\u00fbtra refers (not to the question whether Bri. Up. V, 4 and V, 5 constitute one vidy\u00e2 but) to the question whether the V\u00e2gasaneyaka-passage about the persons in the sun and in the eye, and the similar Kh\u00e2ndogya-passage (I, 6, 6, 'Now that golden person who is seen within the sun,' &c.) form one vidy\u00e2 or not. They conclude that they do so, and that hence truth and the other qualities mentioned in\nthe V\u00e2gasaneyaka are to be combined with the Kh\u00e2ndogya-text also.--But this interpretation of the S\u00fbtra appears objectionable. For the Kh\u00e2ndogya-vidy\u00e2 refers to the udg\u00eetha and is thus connected with sacrificial acts, marks of which connexion are exhibited in the beginning, the middle, and the end of the vidy\u00e2. Thus we read at the beginning, 'The Rik is the earth, the S\u00e2man is fire;' in the middle, 'Rik and S\u00e2man are his joints and therefore he is udg\u00eetha;' and in the end, 'He who knowing this sings a S\u00e2man' (Kh. Up. I, 6, 1; 8; I, 7, 7). In the V\u00e2gasaneyaka, on the other hand, there is nothing to connect the vidy\u00e2 with sacrificial acts. As therefore the subject-matter is different, the vidy\u00e2s are separate and the details of the two are to be held apart.\n245:1 Viz. the clause in V, 5, 2, 'That which is the true,' which apparently--or really--connects the vidy\u00e2 of V, 5 with that of V, 4.\n246:1 For the vidy\u00e2 contains no explicit statement that a man desirous of such and such a fruit is to meditate on the True in such and such a way.--That in cases where the fruit is not stated in a vidhi-passage it must be supplied from the arthav\u00e2da-passages, is taught in the P\u00fb. M\u00ee. S\u00fb. IV, 3, eighth adhikarana.","title":"The Vedanta Sutras of Badarayana: Third Adhy\u00e2ya. Th...","type":"page"}