VEDANTA-SUTRAS

Relation to the Mimamsa-sutras

Along with Badari and Jaimini, Badarayana, a contemporary of Jaimini, was the other major interpreter of Vedic thought. Just as the Mimamsa-sutra traditions of Badari's tradition were revived by Prabhakara, a 7th-8th-century scholar, and Jaimini's defended by Sabara and Kumarila, a 7th-8th-century scholar, Badarayana's sutras laid the basis for the development of Vedanta philosophy. The relation of the Vedanta-sutras to the Mimamsa-sutras, however, is difficult to ascertain. Badarayana approves of the Mimamsa view that the relation between words and their significations is eternal. There are, however, clear statements of difference: according to Jaimini, for example, the dispenser of the "fruits" of one's actions is dharma, the law of righteousness itself, but for Badarayana it is the supreme lord, Isvara. Often, Jaimini's interpretation is contrasted with that of Badari; in such cases, Badarayana sometimes supports Badari's view and sometimes regards both as defensible.

The overall difference that emerges is that whereas Jaimini lays stress on the ritualistic parts of the Vedas, Badarayana lays stress on the philosophical portions--i.e., the Upanisads. The former recommends the path of Vedic injunctions, hence the ideal of karma; the latter recommends the path of knowledge. The central concept of Jaimini's investigation is dharma -- i.e., what ought to be done; the central theme of Badarayana's investigations is Brahman--i.e., the absolute reality. The relationship between these two treatises remains a matter of controversy between later commentators--Ramanuja, a great South Indian philosopher of the 11th-12th centuries, defending the thesis that they jointly constitute a single work with Jaimini's coming first and Badarayana's coming after it in logical order, and Shankara, an earlier great South Indian philosopher of the 8th-9th centuries, in favour of the view that the two are independent of each other and possibly also inconsistent in their central theses.

Contents and organization of the four books

Badarayana's sutras have four books (adhyayas), each book having four chapters (padas). The first book is concerned with the theme of samanvaya ("reconciliation"). The many conflicting statements of the scriptures are all said to agree in converging on one central theme: the concept of Brahman, the one absolute being from whom all beings arise, in whom they are maintained, and into whom they return. The second book establishes avirodha ("consistency") by showing the following:
(1) that dualism and Vaishesika atomism are neither sustainable interpretations of the scriptures nor defensible rationally;
(2) that though consciousness cannot conceivably arise out of a nonconscious nature, the material world could arise out of spirit;
(3) that the effect in its essence is not different from the cause;
(4) that though Brahman is all-perfect and has no want, creation is an entirely unmotivated free act of delight (lila).
The Buddhist (Vijnanavada) view that there are no external objects but only minds and their conceptions is refuted, as also the Buddhist doctrine of the momentariness of all that is. The Jaina pluralism and the theism of the Pashupatas and the Bhagavatas are also rejected. Because, according to Vedanta, only Brahman is external, the third and the fourth chapters of the second book undertake to show that nothing else is eternal. The third book concerns the spiritual discipline and the various stages by which the finite individual (jiva) may realize his essential identity with Brahman. The fourth and last book deals with the final result of the modes of discipline outlined in the preceding book and distinguishes between the results achieved by worshipping a personal Godhead and those achieved by knowing the one Brahman. Included is some discussion of the possible "worlds" through which the spirits travel after death, but all this discussion is subordinate to the one dominant goal of liberation and consequent escape from the chain of rebirth.

Variations in views

Badarayana's sutras refer to interpreters of Vedanta before him who were concerned with such central issues as the relation between the finite individual ( jiva) and the absolute spirit (Brahman) and the possible bodily existence of a liberated individual. To Asmarthya, an early Vedanta interpreter, is ascribed the view that the finite individual and the absolute are both identical and different (as causes and their effects are different--a view that seems to have been the ancestor of the later theory of Bhedabheda). Audulomi, another pre-Badarayana Vedanta philosopher, is said to have held the view that the finite individual becomes identical with Brahman after going through a process of purification. Another interpreter, Kashakrtsna, holds that the two are identical--a view that anticipates the later "unqualified monism" of Sankara. Badarayana's own views on this issue are difficult to ascertain: the sutras are so concise that they are capable of various interpretations, though there are reasons to believe that Ramanuja’s is closer to their intentions than Sankara's.

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