'Send forth praises, O Virupa, with an eternal voice.'

'An eternal voice, without beginning or end, was uttered by the selfexistent 1.'

Let me conclude these remarks on the singular theory of the eternity of sound by observing that the Chinese are said to have a saying, 'The echoes of a word once uttered vibrate in space to all eternity.'

The Vedanta.

Of orthodox systems there only remains the Vedānta of Vyāsa or Bādarāyaṇa2; but this is in some respects the most important of all the six, both from its closer con

1 The whole text of the Rig-veda (VIII. 64. or 75. 6) is, Tasmai nūnam abhidyave vācā Virūpa nityayā, vṛishne ćodasva sushṭutim, 'send forth praises to this heaven-aspiring and prolific Agni, O Virūpa, with an eternal voice.' Nitya, though taken by the Mīmānsakas in the sense of 'eternal,' probably means only unceasing.' Dr. Muir's Texts, vol. iii. p. 51. The text from Smriti has only as yet been found in Mahābharata, Santi-parvan 8. 533, An-ādi-nidhanā nityā vāg utsṛishṭā svayam-bhuvā.

2 The reputed author of this system, Badarāyaṇa, is very loosely identified with the legendary person named Vyāsa, who is supposed to have arranged the Vedas and written the Mahā-bhārata, Purāņas, and a particular Dharma-sastra or law-book. No doubt the name Vyasa, 'arranger,' was applied as a kind of title to various great writers or compilers, and in this sense it seems to have been given to the founder of the Vedānta system. He propounded his views, as usual, in Sūtras, but Bādarāyaṇa's Aphorisms are generally called Brahma-sutra, or sometimes Sārīrakasutra, and the system itself is variously styled Brahma-mīmānsā and Sārīraka-mīmāṇsā (investigation into the supreme Soul or embodied Spirit). The text of the Sutras and the celebrated commentary by Sankarācārya have been edited in the Bibliotheca Indica by Dr. Röer, and a portion translated by Professor Banerjea. Dr. Ballantyne also edited and translated a portion of the Sutras and commentary and a popular compendium called the Vedanta-sāra. A vast number of other commentaries and treatises on the Vedanta exist.

formity to the pantheistic doctrines propounded in the Upanishads, on which treatises as forming the end of the Veda it professes to be founded, and from its greater adaptation to the habits of thought common among thinking and educated Hindus, as much in present as in former periods. The pantheism pervading the Upanishads and leading directly to the Vedanta system has already been illustrated by a selection of examples.

The following simple confession of a Vedantist's faith can be added from the Chandogya Upanishad (III. 14):

All this universe (Tò Tâv) indeed is Brahma; from him does it proceed; into him it is dissolved; in him it breathes1. So let every one adore him calmly.

Here, then, we have presented to us a different view of the origin of the world. In the Nyaya it was supposed to proceed from a concurrence of innumerable eternal atoms; in the Sankhya from one original eternal element called Prakriti; both operating independently, though associated with eternal souls and, according to one view, presided over by a supreme Soul. But in the Vedanta there is really no material world at all, as distinct from the universal Soul. Hence the doctrine of this school is called A-dvaita, non-dualism.' The universe exists but merely as a form of the one eternal essence (rò év). He is the all-pervading Spirit, the only really existing substance (vastu). Even as early as the Rig-veda the outlines of this pantheistic creed, which became more definite in the Upanishads and Vedanta, may be traced. The germ of the Vedanta is observable in the Purusha-sukta, as we

1 This is expressed in the text by one compound, taj-jalan, interpreted as equivalent to taj-ja, tal-la, tad-ana. The whole text is sarvam khalv idam brahma taj-jalān iti sānta upāsīta. The philosophy of the Sufīs,

alleged to be developed out of the Kuran (see p. 36), appears to be a kind of pantheism very similar to that of the Vedanta.

have already shown by the example given at p. 24. The early Vedantic creed has the merit of being exceedingly simple. It is comprised in these three words, occurring in the Chandogya Upanishad (see p. 41), Ekam evādvitiyam, 'one only Essence without a second;' or in the following line of nine short words, Brahma satyam jagan mithyā jivo brahmaiva naparaḥ, Brahma is true, the world is false, the soul is only Brahma and no other.'

As the Nyaya has much in common with the practical philosophy of Aristotle, which gave to things and individuals, rather than to ideas, a real existence, so the Vedānta offers many parallels to the idealism of Plato1. Bādarāyaṇa's very first Aphorism states the object of the whole system in one compound word, viz. Brahma-jijñāsā,

1 Plato does not always state his theory of ideas very intelligibly, and probably modified them in his later works. He seems, however, to have insisted on the doctrine that mind preceded and gave rise to matter, or, in other words, that the whole material world proceeded from or was actually produced by the Creator according to the idea or pattern of a world existing eternally and for ever the same in his own mind. In the Timaeus (10) he says: To discover the Maker and Father of this universe (Tou Tavrós) is difficult, and, when he has been discovered, it is impossible to describe him to the multitude. According to which of two patterns (pòs Tóтероν тŵν параdetyμárov) did he frame the world? According to one subsisting for ever the same? Or according to one which was produced? Since, then, this universe is beautiful and its Artificer good, he evidently looked in modelling it to an eternal (atdiov) pattern.' Similarly, Plato seems to have held that the human mind has existing within it certain abstract ideas or ideal forms which precede and are visibly manifested in the actual concrete forms around us. For example, the abstract ideas of goodness and beauty are found pre-existing in the mind, and, as it were, give rise to the various good and beautiful objects manifested before our eyes. In the same manner all circular things must have been preceded by some ideal circular form existing as an eternal reality. For, according to Plato, these abstract ideas had a real, eternal, unchanging existence of their own, quite separate from and independent of the ever-varying concrete objects and appearances connected with them.

I

'Brahma-inquisitiveness,' i. e. the desire of knowing Brahman (neut.), or the only really existing being.

Here we may quote a portion of Sankarācārya's commentary (Röer's edition, pp. 29 and 43):

The knower of Brahma attains the supreme good and supreme object of man (param purushārthamтò ȧyaðóv, Tò ȧpíσTov, summum bonum).

A really existing substance (vastu) cannot alternately be thus and not thus, cannot (optionally) be and not be. The knowledge of a substance just as it is in reality (i. e. true knowledge) is not dependent on a man's own personal notions (na purusha-buddhy-apeksham)1. It depends on the substance itself. To say of one and the same post that it is either a post or a man or something else is not true knowledge (tattva-jñānam). It is a false notion (mithyā-jñānam)2. That it is a post is alone the truth, because it is dependent on the substance itself (vastu-tantratvāt). Thus the proving of an existing substance is dependent on the substance itself. Thus the knowledge of Brahma is dependent on the substance itself (not on the notion a man may form of Brahma), because it relates to a really existing substance (bhūta-vastu-vishayatvāt).

3

In the second Aphorism Brahma is defined to mean 'that from which the production of this universe results.' Śankara adds a fuller definition, thus (Röer's edition, p. 38):

1 San-kara appears here to argue against a doctrine like that ascribed to Protagoras, πάντων μέτρον ἄνθρωπος, ‘the individual man is the standard of all things.'

2 One of Plato's causes of mistaken notion is that when two persons or things have been seen and their forms impressed on the mind, they are yet, owing to imperfect observation, mistaken the one for the other: It remains that I may form a false notion in this case, when knowing you and Theodorus and having the impression of both of you on that waxen tablet of the mind (év ékeivą tą kηpivo) made by a seal ring as it were, seeing you both from a distance and not sufficiently distinguishing you, I fit the aspect of each to the impression of the other, changing them like those that put their shoes on the wrong feet : τότε δὴ συμβαίνει ἡ ἑτεροδοξία kaì tò уevdî doğágew,' Theaet. 122. Compare Banerjea's translation of the Brahma-sūtra, p. 2.

3 The name Brahman is in fact derived from the root brih or vrih, to grow and expand,' and therefore means literally the one essence which grows or expands. Vriksha, 'a tree,' is from the same root.

Brahma is that all-knowing, all-powerful Cause from which arises the production, continuance, and dissolution of the universe, which (universe) is modified by name and form, contains many agents and patients (kartṛibhoktri-samyukta), is the repository (āśraya) of actions and effects, and in the form of its arrangement cannot be conceived even by the mind.

The Aphorisms which follow, as far as the 28th, proceed to define and describe the character of God as the supreme Soul of the universe. I here give a summary1 of the most interesting of them, with portions of the commentary:

2

That the supreme Being is omniscient follows from the fact that he is the source of the Veda (sastra-yonitvāt). As from that Being every soul is evolved, so to that same Being does every soul return. How can souls be merged into Prakriti? for then the intelligent would be absorbed in the unintelligent. He, the supreme Being, consists of joy. This is clear from the Veda, which describes him as the cause of joy; for as those who enrich others must be themselves rich, so there must be abundant joy with him who causes others to rejoice. Again, he, the one God, is the light (jyotis). He is within the sun and within the eye. He is the ethereal element (ākāśa)3. He is the life and the breath of life (prāņa). He is the life with which Indra identified himself when he said to Pratardana, 'I am the life, consisting of perfect knowledge. Worship me as the life immortal1.'

From other portions of the Aphorisms it appears that the Tò ev, or one universal essence called Brahma, is to the external world what yarn is to cloth, what milk to curds,

1 See Dr. Ballantyne's translation, and that of Professor Banerjea. 2 The Prakriti or Pradhana of the Sankhya system.

3 Professor Banerjea considers that the word 'ether' is not a good rendering for ākāśa, which pervades everything. There is ākāśa in our cups and within our bodies, which are surely not ethereal. One of the synonyms of ākāśa is śūnya, and this may be compared in some respects to the 'inane' or space of Lucretius (I. 330):

Nec tamen undique corporeâ stipata tenentur

Omnia naturâ ; namque est in rebus inane.

'And yet all things are not on all sides held and jammed together in close and solid parts; there is a space (or void) in things.'

This is from the Kaushitaki-brāhmaṇa Upanishad, chapter 3. Professor E. B. Cowell's translation.