वेदान्त पारिजात सौरभ (भगवद् निम्बार्काचार्य - द्वैताद्वैत वेदान्त ब्रह्मसूत्र भाष्य सटीक)

[SŪ. 2. 3. 14. ADH. 5 ] VEDĀNTA-KAUSTUBHA 403 created ahaṃkāra. Then the Lord, the Master, who is the support of all elements, (created) what is celebrated to be the ether From the ether originated water, from water fire and air, then from the conjunc- tion of fire and air the earth originated’, and so on. And this "fits in" on the ground of the scriptural text: ‘The earth merges in water, water merges in the fire, the fire merges in the air, the air merges in the ether, the ether into the sense-organs, the sense-organs in the subtle essences, the subtle essences in bhūtādi, bhūtādi in mahat, mahat in the unmanifest’ (Subāla 2.4), on the ground of the following Smṛti passage, viz. ‘The earth, the support of the world, merges, divine sage, in water, water merges in the fire, the fire merges in the air’; and on the ground of observing salt, ice and the like to be dissolved into water. What is not mentioned, by the text about creation, in the order of the origination of prakṛti, mahat, ahaṃkāra, the ether and so on, is to be supplied from the text about dissolution; i e. the construction is: ‘The ether (merges in) the sense-organs, the sense-organs in the subtle essences, the subtle essences in bhūtādi’. The ether merges in the subtle essences, the subtle essences merge in bhūtādi, i.e. in tāmasa ahaṃkāra, the sense-organs in sense-organs, i e in the rājasa ahaṃkāra,—since here by the word ‘sense-organ’ ahaṃkāra is understood there being non-difference between cause and effect. The plural number, viz. ‘subtle essences’ is meant for showing that the dissolution of the earth and the rest takes place through the subtle essences of smell and the rest. On account of the three-foldness of ahaṃkāra, the plural number, viz. ‘In the sense-organs’, has been used. Thus, it is established that dissolution, taking place in the above inverted order, is not contradicted by anything whatsoever. Here ends the section entitled “The reverse” (5). COMPARISON Rāmānuja and Baladeva This is sūtra 15 in Rāmānuja’s commentary. He does not begin a new adhikaraṇa here, concerned with the order of dissolution, but continues the topic of the order of evolution. Thus the sūtra means according to him: And the order (of the origination of the vital- breath and the rest), on the contrary, (stated) in a reverse order (to