{"collection":"Hinduism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/hin/sbe48/sbe48385.htm","path":"hin/sbe48/sbe48385.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/hin/sbe48/sbe48385.htm","text":"1. What is understood from all the Ved\u00e2nta-texts (is one), on account of the non-difference of injunction and the rest.\nThe S\u00fbtras have stated whatever has to be stated to the end of rousing the desire of meditation-concluding with the fact that Brahman bestows rewards. Next the question is introduced whether the vidy\u00e2s (i.e. the different forms of meditation on Brahman which the Ved\u00e2nta-texts enjoin) are different or non-different, on the decision of which question it will depend whether the qualities attributed to Brahman in those vidy\u00e2s are to be comprised in one act of meditation or not.--The first subordinate question arising here is whether one and the same meditation--as e.g. the vidy\u00e2 of Vaisv\u00e2nara--which is met with in the text of several s\u00e2kh\u00e2s, constitutes one vidy\u00e2 or several.--The vidy\u00e2s are separate, the P\u00fbrvapakshin maintains; for the fact that the same matter is, without difference, imparted for a second time, and moreover stands under a different heading--both which circumstances necessarily attend the text's being met with in different s\u00e2kh\u00e2s--proves the difference of the two meditations. It is for this reason only that a restrictive injunction, such as the one conveyed in the text, 'Let a man tell this science of Brahman to those only who have performed the rite of carrying fire on their head' (Mu. Up. III, 2, 10)--which restricts the impaiting of knowledge to the \u00c2tharvanikas, to whom that rite is peculiar--has any sense; for if the vidy\u00e2s were one, then the rite mentioned, which is a part of the vidy\u00e2, would be valid for the members of other s\u00e2kh\u00e2s also, and then the restriction enjoined by the text would have no meaning.--This view is set aside by the S\u00fbtra, 'What is understood from all the Ved\u00e2nta-texts' is one and the same meditation, 'because there is non-difference of injunction and the rest.' By injunction is meant the\ninjunction of special activities denoted by different verbal roots--such as up\u00e2s\u00eeta 'he should meditate,' vidy\u00e2t 'he should know.' The and the rest' of the S\u00fbtra is meant to comprise as additional reasons the circumstances mentioned in the P\u00fbrva M\u00eem\u00e2ms\u00e2-s\u00fbtras (II, 4, 9). Owing to all these circumstances, non-difference of injunction and the rest, the same vidy\u00e2 is recognised in other s\u00e2kh\u00e2s also. In the Kh\u00e2andogya (V, 12, 2) as well as in the V\u00e2gasaneyaka we meet with one and the same injunction (viz. 'He should meditate on Vaisv\u00e2nara'). The form (character, r\u00fbpa) of the meditations also is the same, for the form of a cognition solely depends on its object; and the object is in both cases the same, viz. Vaisv\u00e2nara. The name of the two vidy\u00e2s also is the same, viz. the knowledge of Vaisv\u00e2nara. And both vidy\u00e2s are declared to have the same result, viz. attaining to Brahman. All these reasons establish the identity of vidy\u00e2s even in different s\u00e2kh\u00e2s.--The next S\u00fbtra refers to the reasons set forth for his view by the P\u00fbrvapakshin and refutes them.","title":"SBE 48: The Vedanta-Sutras with commentary by Ramanuja, George Thibaut, tr.: Third P\u00e2da: Third P\u00e2da: 1. What is understood from all the Ved\u00e2nta-texts is one, on account of the non-difference of injunction and the rest","type":"page"}