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SuthrakAra, says Ramanuja, refutes this by the suthra 'Anandhamayo
abhyAsAth.'  The self described as blissful is the Brahman because of
the repetition.



The passage in TaittrEya about the evaluation of the bliss startswith
the joy of a man who is blessed  with everything and goes on to relate
that of celestial beings,devas etc multiplying each by hundred to
measure the succesive one ending with the bliss of Brahma, the creator
and mentioning that to be a particle of the bliss of the Supreme Being,
Brahman. At the end of the chapter is the text, 'yatho vacho
nivarthanthe aprApya manasA saha Anandham brahmaNO vidvAn na bibhEthi
kuthschana, the enlightened man is not afraid of anything after
realising that bliss of Brahman, unable to reach whom, the words turn
back along with the mind. This Anandha, can reside only in the Supreme
Self who is free from all imperfections and possesses infinite
auspicious qualities as it cannot relate to the individual self who is
finite and subjected to meagre happiness mixed with unlimited sorrow.



         The term vijnAnamaya refers to the individual self  who has
vijnAna and not to the intellect because of the suffix 'mayat' which
denotes abundance. The term vijnAna is also  used in the figurative
sense in texts like 'vijnAnam yajnam thanuthe, the intellect performs
sacrifice,' where actually the performer is denoted, as there can be no
agency attributed to the intellect. the text of Taittreya however does
not ascribe agency to the others like pranamaya and the preceding ones
as they are insentient and they mean only the prAna etc. and not the
self possessing prAna.Hence that which ie said to be the innerself of
vijAnamaya is only the SupremeSelf.



The argument based on the text that describes Brahman entering into all
beings as its self and the text'that thou art,' to show the identity of
the jiva with Brahman is not correct, says Ramanuja because the
statementthat it willed to become many and created the fire will not be
applicable to the indivisual self.Ramnuja asks, 'kaTHam vA nirastha
nikhiladhoshagandhasya anavaDHika athisaya asankhyEya kalyANa
guNagaNasya sakalakAraNa bhoothasya brahmaNah nAnAviDHAnantha duhkhAkara
karmADHeena chinthithnimishithAdhi sakalpravrtthijivasvarupathvam.'

This means that it is impossible for the Supreme Being, who is free from
all imperfections and abode of limitless wonderful innumerable
auspicious qualities,and the cause of all beings,  to be identical with
the individual self who is under the influence of karma and experiences
infiite misery and engaged in all kinds activities that bind him.



It may be argued that the Brahman is perceived as the individual self
due to beginningless avidhya, to dispell which the study of vedanta is
started. But this is contrary, says Ramanuja to the statement, 'yEna
asrutham srutham bhavathi, by which what is not heard becomes heard,'
thus promising 'EkavijAnEna sarva vijnAnam, all knowledge by the
knowledge of one,' and  to the mention of the causality of Brahman by
the text 'sadhEva soumya idhamagra Aseeth Ekamva advitheeyam,
thadhaikshatha bahu syAm prajAyEya, thatthEjO asrjatha' etc. It would be
highly improbable that after showing the Brahman as one of infallible
will by the statement 'thdhaaikshatha bahu syAm' if the same Brahman is
identified with the individual self who is the experiemcer of infinite
misery through the proclamation 'thatthvamasi.' If on the other hand it
is claimed that all this (the experience of the world) is unreal then
the knowledge of all by knowledge of one will be meaningless as there is
nothing real to know.



If Brahman alone is real and everything else is unreal, the text 'yatha
soumya EkEna mrthpindEna sarvam mrnmayam vijnAtham' will not make sense 
because it means that when the cause, which is real, clay, is cognised,
the effects, which are also real, are understood.



The word 'thvam' refers to the jiva in the state of transmigration.The
identity between jiva and Brahman has already been refuted by the former
suthras. The identity ascertained through discardimg the main meaning of
the adjectives and taking only the implied meaning as in the case of
'this is that Devadattha ,' can not be accepted as shown already. the
words like 'blue lotus' denotes the blue colour as well as the entity
lotus.



Ramanuja gives an example to illusrate this point. 'YaTHA neelmuthpalam
Anaya ithyukthe neelimaadhi visishtamEva AneeyathE, yaThA cha
vinDHyAtavyAm madhamudhithO mAthangajasThishTathi ithi padhadhvaya
avagatha viseshaNa visishta Eva arTha pratheeyathe'. That is, when
someone is asked to bring the blue lotus he brings only the lotus having
the attribute of blueness and not white or red one. Similarly on hearing
the words there is a mad elephant standing in the vindhya forest we
understand the  meaning only with all the qualifications such as the
place, the entity and its state (madness) etc.



According to the principle of SamANadhikaraNya,coordination,
'bhinnapravrtthi nimitthAnAm sabdhAnam Eaksmin arTHE vrtthih sAmana
DHikaraNyam,' when different words having different application are
coordinated to denote the same entity.Secondary meaning is to be
resorted to only when any one of the words fail to express the entity it
qualifies through its primary meaning as in the cases of 'gourvAhikah,
this vahika man is an ox, where the words man and ox cannot denote the
same entity by their pimaray meaning and hence one of the words, namely,
ox, is taken in the secondary sense. But here in the example 'blue
lotus' there is no such need to resort to secondary meaning as the term
blue denotes only the lotus in its primary sense of colour silmilar to
the expressions 'dhandee or kundalee,' one with a stick or one wearing
earrings.Even in the sentence 'so ayam devadatthah, this is that
Devadattah,' there is no contradiction between the person seen at
present and the same seen in the past because of the difference in the
time and place. (The  identity between Brahman and the jiva is
established in advaita by citing this example as seen previously.)



Ramanuja cites another example 'aruNayA EkahAyinyApingkshyA sOmam
kreeNaAthi,' which means, he buys soma by a cow one year old, of tawny
hue and yellow eyes.. He refutes the view of the opponent who says that
the attributes mentioned may not refer to one entity, by saying, the
same entity ,namely the cow is denoted as having the attributes, one
year old, tawny colour and yellow eyes, which is justified by the
principle of sAmanadhikaraNya. This is the similar one to the expression
'the cloth is red.' Several words put in the same case ending,
nominative , may stand in coordination denoting the same entity such as
' devadatthah syamo yuvA dhandee kundalee thishTathi,' Devadattha, dark,
young, carrying a staff and wearing earrings is standing.



Ramanuja shows another instance where the words not with the same case
ending also illustrate the principle of sAmAnAdhikaraNya. In the
sentence 'kAshTaih sTHAlyAm Odhanam pacheth' meaning, 'he will cook rice
in a vessel with firewood' denote a single purport using words with
different case endings, kAshTaih in instrumental and sTHAlyam in the
locative case. Ramanuja even cites a more complex sentence as an example
of this.'khAdhiraih sushkaih kAshTaih samparimAnE bhANdE pAyasam
salyodhanam samarTHah pAchakah pacEth.' This means, a proficient cook
(samarThah pAchakah-nominative), cooks in a vessel of even dimension
(samaparimANE bhAnde-locative) rice pAyasam( accusative) with sticks of
dry khadhira wood (indstrumental). In this sentence the adjectives are
put in different cases according to the words they qualify and yet
denote the purport of the sentence by coordination.



Ramanuja takes up another objection, ( of mimAmsaka) that the word
denoting a quality of a thing already mentioned in the context refers to
the quality only and not the entity. Ramanuja says that it is not so
because neither in the scriptures nor in the worldly usage the words
denoting qualities which are in coordination with the an entity are seen
to connote only the attribute. 'lOkavEdhayOh
dravyavAchipadhasamAnADHikaraNasya  gunavAchinah kvachidhapi
kevalaguNAbhiDHAna adarsanATH.' For example in the sentence 'the cloth
is white, patah shukalah' the word white denotes the cloth which is
white whereas in the expression 'the whiteness of the cloth,patasya
shuklah' it has an independent meaning, not because the word 'patah' is
mentioned first but it is due to the two words being in different case
terminations. On the other hand when it is said 'patasya shuklah bhAgah'
the white part of the cloth, the same case termination denotes the part
of the cloth which is white.



In the vedic usage also, points out Ramanuja, in the sentence like
'aruNayA EkahAyinya pingAkshyA sOmam kreeNAthi', he buys soma with
tawny-coloured, one year old and yellow-eyed (cow),  the words tawny,
one year old and yelow-eyed have connection only with the entity cow
whom they qualify and do not denote the attribute only. This is in
answer to mimaamsakas view that all words are meaningful only when they
are connected with action. Hence they explain the above sentence to mean
that one buys soma with one year old, with tawnycoloured and with
yellow-eyed in which each word is connected with the verb kreeNAthi,
buys, independently.























































[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



 
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