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unauthorized to perform rituals, one could still object that this does not affect the capacity for knowledge since, as Advaita has insisted from UMS I.1.1 on, one does not need to perform sacrifices in order to be able to know. The purvapaksa concludes by noting that even if one wishes to deny to the sudra the privileges of the brahmanical style of learning, there is no reason to exclude other means for the sudra's acquisition of knowledge, such as learning from books.
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Insofar as Advaita consists of knowledge, pure and simple, the criticism is on target; the purvapaksin is simply following through on the logic of the Advaita exposition of what the radically simple knowledge of Brahman implies. But the siddhantin stresses the status of jijñasa as a mode of inquiry, not simply the desire to know, and focuses on the importance of the manner of access to the Text. The circumstances of learning are important, for by them knowledge is made properly available to the right kind of people. Only after proper learning can the simple and suppositionless nature of knowledge of Brahman emerge. |
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Sankara presents a simple, stark version of the Mimamsa argument that sudras are to be excluded, simply because the Veda excludes them: |
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The sudra has no competence, since he cannot study the Veda; for one becomes competent regarding things spoken of in the Vedas after one has studied the Vedas and known these things from them. But there can be no study of the Veda by a sudra, for study of the Veda presupposes investiture with the sacred thread, which is restricted to the three castes. (UMS I.3.34) |
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Vacaspati's initial statement of the siddhanta balances the dynamics of reading against their contextualization within the strictures of the Veda itself; he responds more directly to the purvapaksa: |
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Let us concede that the injunction to study, "One must study one's proper portion [of the Veda]", is not recorded in the context of any fruitful ritual action, and that it is not connected invariably to any ritual just by the meanings of its |
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