|
|
|
|
|
|
|
destination, though one totally unrelated to realization in its higher form. The position of Jaimini, though given second, is the purvapaksa, "presented [last] merely as an apparent, alternative view by way of helping the [student's] development of the power of intellect."
49 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
This striking rereading sets the stage for Sankara's lengthy exposition of UMS IV.3.14 as a lengthy defense of the Advaita version of the adhikarana and a rebuttal of the proposal that Badarayana is in fact supporting the view attributed to Jaimini. His comment is a rich and complex example of how attention to the (re)reading of texts is affected by positions based on (earlier) readings, and hence of how Brahman is to be rightly thought about and texts rightly read. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Sankara says that Jaimini's view cannot be the siddhanta, on the grounds that "Brahman cannot logically be a goal to be attained. The higher Brahman which pervades everything, which is inside everything, which is the self of all . . . can never become a goal to be achieved."50 Texts which portray movement toward Brahman must be understood as referring to the provisional Brahman, to which spatiality and locality still apply. Texts which deny distinction in Brahman must be given priority over those which indicate distinction, on the pragmatic grounds that it is only the former which lead to a knowledge lacking nothing: "when one has realized that the Self is one, eternal, pure, etc., one cannot want anything else, because of the plausibility that by this understanding one has thus accomplished the human goal."51 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
After expounding the nature of the self which can be liberated by knowledge,52 Sankara offers an instruction on the proper, limited and propaedeutic use of texts which seem to talk about Brahman as the destination of the post-mortem journey of the self,53 and concludes with a summary statement about Brahman in its provisional and higher forms. He asks, "Are there then two Brahmans, one higher and the other provisional?" He offers this scripturally framed answer: |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
Quite so; for we come across such texts as, "This very Brahman, Satyakama, higher and provisional, is [the sacred syllable] Om." (Prasna Upanisad 5.2) What then is the higher Brahman and what is the provisional Brahman? Where Brah- |
|
|
|
|
|