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

[SŪ. 1. 1. 2. 24 VEDĀNTA-KAUSTUBHA ADH. 2.] There are scriptural texts to this effect,—beginning:—'Bhrgu, the son of Varuna approached his father, (with the request) "Sir, teach me Brahman"' (Tait. 3 1), and continuing:—' "From, whom, verily, all these beings arise, by whom they, so born, live and to whom they go forth and enter,—enquire into that, that is Brahman" ' (Tait 3.1), 'Brahman is truth, knowledge and infinite' (Tait. 2.1) and so on. (The meaning of the first of the above two texts is:—) 'From whom', i.e from Lord Purusottama, 'all these beings', i.e all objects from the mahat down to a tuft of grass, 'arise',—hereby the origination (of the world from the Lord) is indicated. 'By whom, they, so born, live',—hereby the subsistence (of the world in Brahman) is indicated. 'They enter',—hereby the dissolution (of the world into the Lord) is shown. 'To whom they go forth',—meaning—'whom they attain after the destruction of all karmas',—hereby salvation (of the souls) is indicated. Here 'origination' means the expansion of the manifold consciousness of the sentient being, due to its connec- tion with a body and the rest; and 'dissolution' means its entrance into the Cause (viz Brahman), resulting from the contraction of its consciousness. This will be made clear under the explanations of the two aphorisms, viz. 'Dependent on the movable and the immovable' (Br. Sū. 2.3.16) and so on. The distinction (between the sentient and the non-sentient) is that the non-sentient is more primary, having a different form at the beginning of creation ¹ The meaning of the second text, on the other hand, is that Brahman possesses the attributes of truth, knowledge and infinitude. Here, the word 'truth' distinguishes the Lord from what is not true, the word 'knowledge' from the group of the non-sentient, and the word 'infinite' from the group of the sentient And, thus it is established that the characteristic mark of Brahman is that He, being the one non-distinct material and efficient cause of the universe, is possessed of truth and the rest He is the material cause ² in the sense of being the manifestor, in a gross form, of His own ¹ That is, the non-sentient is more primary than the sentient in the sense that it is prior to the sentient in point of time. Right in the beginning of creation, the individual soul does not exist, in the sense that there is nobody with which it may be connected, but pradhāna does, though not in the form of particular non-sentient substances like stones and houses, etc., and the body comes to be evolved later on. Cf Sāṁkhya theory of evolution. ² Upādānatva.