The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya Part 34

[Footnote 399: A series of momentary existences const.i.tuting a chain of causes and effects can never be entirely stopped; for the last momentary existence must be supposed either to produce its effect or not to produce it. In the former case the series is continued; the latter alternative would imply that the last link does not really exist, since the Bauddhas define the satta of a thing as its causal efficiency (cp.

Sarvadar/s/a/n/asa/m/graha). And the non-existence of the last link would retrogressively lead to the non-existence of the whole series.]

[Footnote 400: Thus clay is recognised as such whether it appears in the form of a jar, or of the potsherds into which the jar is broken, or of the powder into which the potsherds are ground.--a.n.a.logously we infer that even things which seem to vanish altogether, such as a drop of water which has fallen on heated iron, yet continue to exist in some form.]

[Footnote 401: The knowledge that everything is transitory, pain, &c.]

[Footnote 402: What does enable us to declare that there is avara/n/abhava in one place and not in another? s.p.a.ce; which therefore is something real.]

[Footnote 403: If the cause were able, without having undergone any change, to produce effects, it would at the same moment produce all the effects of which it is capable.--Cp. on this point the Sarvadar/s/a/n/asa/m/graha.]

[Footnote 404: This is added to obviate the remark that it is not a general rule that effects are of the same nature as their causes, and that therefore, after all, existent things may spring from non-existence.]

[Footnote 405: According to the vij/n/anavadin the cognition specialised by its various contents, such as, for instance, the idea of blue colour is the object of knowledge; the cognition in so far as it is consciousness (avabhasa) is the result of knowledge; the cognition in so far as it is power is mana, knowledge; in so far as it is the abode of that power it is pramat/ri/, knowing subject.]

[Footnote 406: If they are said to be different from the atoms they can no longer be considered as composed of atoms; if they are non-different from atoms they cannot be the cause of the mental representations of gross non-atomic bodies.]

[Footnote 407: Avayavavayavirupo vahyosrtho nasti /k/en ma bhud jativyaktyadirupas tu syad ity a/s/rankyaha evam iti. Jatyadina/m/ vyaktyadinam /k/atyantabhinnatve atyantabhinnatve tadvadevatadbhavad bhinnabhinnatvasya viruddhatvad avayavavayavibhedavaj gativyaktyadibhedosxpi nast.i.ty artha/h/.]

[Footnote 408: Vasana, above translated by mental impression, strictly means any member of the infinite series of ideas which precedes the present actual idea.]

[Footnote 409: For all these doctrines depend on the comparison of ideas which is not possible unless there be a permanent knowing subject in addition to the transitory ideas.]

[Footnote 410: The vij/n/anaskandha comprises vij/n/anas of two different kinds, the alayavij/n/ana and the prav/ri/ttivij/n/ana. The alayavij/n/ana comprises the series of cognitions or ideas which refer to the ego; the prav/ri/ttivij/n/ana comprises those ideas which refer to apparently external objects, such as colour and the like. The ideas of the latter cla.s.s are due to the mental impressions left by the antecedent ideas of the former cla.s.s.]

[Footnote 411: Viz. in the present case the principle that what presents itself to consciousness is not non-existent.]

[Footnote 412: Soul and non-soul are the enjoying souls and the objects of their enjoyment; asrava is the forward movement of the senses towards their objects; sa/m/vara is the restraint of the activity of the senses; nirjara is self-mortification by which sin is destroyed; the works const.i.tute bondage; and release is the ascending of the soul, after bondage has ceased, to the highest regions.--For the details, see Professor Cowell's translation of the arhata chapter of the Sarvadar/s/a/n/asa/m/graha.]

[Footnote 413: Cp. translation of Sarvadar/s/a/n/asa/m/graha, p. 59.]

[Footnote 414: And so impugn the doctrine of the one eternal Brahman.]

[Footnote 415: Cp. Sarvadar/s/a/n/asa/m/graha translation, p. 58.]

[Footnote 416: The inference being that the initial and intervening sizes of the soul must be permanent because they are sizes of the soul, like its final size.]

[Footnote 417: The special nature of the connexion between the Lord and the pradhana and the souls cannot be ascertained from the world considered as the effect of the pradhana acted upon by the Lord; for that the world is the effect of the pradhana is a point which the Vedantins do not accept as proved.]

[Footnote 418: I.e. a high one, but not an indefinite one; since the omniscient Lord knows its measure.]