Brahma Sutra

[Charo Lemucchi]

TheBrahma Sūtras consist of 555 aphoristic verses (sutras) in four chapters,[9] dealing with attaining knowledge of Brahman.[1][10] Assuming that the Upanishads are unfallible revelations describing the same metaphysical Reality, Brahman, which cannot be different for different people, the text attempts to synthesize and harmonize diverse and sometimes apparently conflicting vidyas ("knowledges") of, and upasanas (meditation, worship) on Brahman. It does so from a bhedabheda-perspective,[1] arguing, as John Koller states: "that Brahman and Atman are, in some respects, different, but, at the deepest level, non-different (advaita), being identical."[11] The first chapter unifies the different views of Brahman or Absolute Reality found in the Upanishads. The second chapter reviews and addresses the objections raised by the ideas of competing orthodox schools of Hindu philosophies such as Nyaya, Yoga, Vaisheshika and Mimamsa as well as heterodox schools such as Buddhism and Jainism.[12] The third chapter compares the vidyas and upasanas found in the Upanishads, deciding which are similar and can be combined, and which are different.[13] The last chapter states why such a knowledge is an important human need.[6]

The Brahma Sūtras is one of three most important texts in Vedanta along with the Principal Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita.[1][4][web 1] It has been influential to various schools of Indian philosophies, but interpreted differently by the non-dualistic Advaita Vedanta sub-school, the theistic Vishishtadvaita and Dvaita Vedanta sub-schools, as well as others.[web 1] Several commentaries on the Brahma Sūtras are lost to history or yet to be found; of the surviving ones, the most well studied commentaries on the Brahma Sūtras include the bhashya by Adi Shankara,[1] Ramanuja, Madhvacharya, Bhaskara, Baladeva Vidyabhushan, Ramanandacharya and many others.[14]

Badarayana was the Guru (teacher) of Jaimini, the latter credited with authoring Mimamsa Sutras of the Mimamsa school of Hindu philosophy.[15] This is likely, given that both Badarayana and Jaimini quote each other as they analyze each other's theories, Badarayana emphasizing knowledge while Jaimini emphasizes rituals, sometimes agreeing with each other, sometimes disagreeing, often anti-thesis of the other.[16]

The Brahma Sūtras text is dated to centuries that followed Buddha and Mahavira, because it mentions and critiques the ideas of Buddhism and Jainism in Chapter 2.[17] The text's relative chronology is also based on the fact that Badarayana quotes all major known orthodox Hindu schools of philosophy except Nyaya.[17][18] The exact century of its composition or completion in final form is unknown. 200 BCE seems to be the most likely date for its initial composition,[8] with scholars such as Lochtefeld suggesting that the text was composed sometime between 500 and 200 BCE,[6][7] while Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and Dasgupta independently suggest the 2nd century BCE as more likely.[19][20] Paul Deussen places it between 200 BCE and 400 CE.[19]

Hermann Jacobi in early 20th century suggested that Madhyamaka Buddhist concepts such as Sunyavada, acknowledged in the Brahma Sūtras, may be a late invention, and suggests that both Sunyavada and Brahma Sūtras may therefore have emerged between 200 and 450 CE.[19] Daniel Ingalls disagreed with Jacobi chronology in his 1954 paper, critiquing Jacobi's assumptions and interpretation of sutras 2.2.28-32 in dating the entire document, and stating that "the Brahma Sūtras could not have been composed later than the start of the common era".[21][22] According to Hajime Nakamura, the Brahma Sūtraswere likely complete in the current form between 400 and 450 CE.[5] The existence of earlier versions of the Brahma Sūtras, and multiple authors predating Badarayana, is supported by textual evidence.[23]

Some scholars, such as Sengaku Mayeda, state that the Brahma Sūtras that have survived into the modern times may be the work of multiple authors but those who lived after Badarayana, and that these authors composed the currently surviving Brahma Sūtras starting about 300 BCE through about 400-450 CE.[24][note 5] Nakamura states that the original version of Brahma Sūtras is likely very ancient and its inception coincides with the Kalpa Sutras period (1st-millennium BCE).[27]

Assigning a later date because of mention of concepts of Buddhism etc., is rejected by Madhvacharya in his work, Anuvyakhyana.[28] He explains the mention of different philosophies and their criticism in the Brahma Sūtras as refutations of general ideas, which are eternal, and not of specific schools of thought like Buddhism etc. So, there is no necessity to assign a later date.

The Brahma Sūtras consist of 555 aphorisms or sūtras, in four chapters (adhyāya), with each chapter divided into four parts (pāda).[9] Each part is further subdivided into sections called Adhikaraņas with sutras.[9] Some scholars, such as Francis Clooney, call the Adhikaraņas as "case studies" with a defined hermeneutic process.[29][30]

The Brahma Sūtras text has 189 Adhikaranas.[35][note 7] Each section (case study) in the text opens with the Mukhya (chief, main) sutra that states the purpose of that section, and the various sections of the Brahma Sūtras include Vishaya-Vakyas (cite the text sources and evidence they use).[9]

Sutras were meant to assist the memory of the student who had gone through long discussions with his guru, as memory aids or clues and maximum thoughts were compressed in a few words which were unambiguous, giving the essence of the arguments on the topic.[36] The Sutras of the text, states Adi Shankara in his commentary, are structured like a string that ties together the Vedanta texts like a garland of flowers.[9]

Sengaku Mayeda states that the Brahma Sūtras distills and consolidates the extensive teachings found in a variety of Upanishads of Hinduism, summarizing, arranging, unifying and systematizing the Upanishadic theories,[24] possibly "written from a Bhedābheda Vedāntic viewpoint."[37] The Vedic literature had grown into an enormous collection of ideas and practices, ranging from practical rituals (karma-kanda) to abstract philosophy (jnana-kanda),[24][38] with different and conflicting theories on metaphysical problems, diverse mutually contradicting unsystematized teachings on rituals and philosophies present in the Upanishads.[24][38] Traditions of textual interpretation developed. While Jaimini's Mimamsa-sutra focused on externalized rituals as the spiritual path, Badarayana's Brahma Sūtras, the only surviving work of several of such compendia, focused on internalized philosophy as the spiritual path.[24][38]

The text reviews and critiques most major orthodox schools of Hindu philosophy as well as all heterodox Indian philosophies such as Buddhism, with the exception of Samkhya and Yoga philosophies which it holds in high regards. It recurrently refers to them in all its four chapters, adding in sutras 2.1.3 and 4.2.21 that Yoga and Samkhya are similar.[42] The text cites and quotes from the ten Principal Upanishads often, particularly the Kaushitaki Upanishad and the Shvetashvatara Upanishad in several sutras. Additionally, it also mentions Upanishads that are now unknown and lost.[42] The contents of the text also acknowledge and analyze the various Vedic schools, and mentions the existence of multiple, diverging versions of the same underlying text.[43]

The sutras of the Brahma Sūtras are aphorisms, which Paul Deussen states to be "threads stretched out in weaving to form the basis of the web", and intelligible "when the woof is added" with a commentary.[44]

The central theme of the first chapter is considered Samanvaya (Harmony), because it aims to distill, synchronize and bring into a harmonious whole the seemingly diverse and conflicting passages in various Sruti texts.[45][46] It consists of 134 sutras, with eleven Adhikaranas in the first Pada, seven Adhikaranas in second, fourteen Adhikaranas in third, and eight in the fourth Pada.[47] The different sub-schools of Vedanta have interpreted the sutras in the last Pada differently, and some count only seven Adhikaranas in the fourth Pada.[47]

Perception, Inference and Word

शब्द इतचेन्नत प्रभवत्प्रत्यक्षनुमनभ्यम्

If it be said that a contradiction will result in regard to Word (Vedas), we say that it is not so because the origination of everything is from perception and inference.

Adi Shankara's commentary: "Perception means Sruti; for its validity it is not dependent on anything else; inference is Smriti".

This Brahma Sūtras chapter asserts that all the Upanishads primarily aim to and coherently describe the knowledge and meditation of Brahman, the ultimate reality.[50] Brahman is the source from which the world came into existence, in whom it inheres and to which it returns. The only source for the knowledge of this Brahman is the Sruti or the Upanishads.[51]

The first word (atha - now, then) of the first sutra has occasioned different interpretations. Ramanuja and Nimbarka argue that it refers to the position of knowledge of Brahman as coming "after the knowledge of karman and its fruits". Shankara takes it as referencing the "acquisition of the four requisite" qualities: "discrimination between eternal and non-eternal things, aversion to the enjoyment of the objects of sense here and in the next world, possession of self-restraint, tranquillity etc., and the desire to be absolutely free". Vallabha disagrees that one needs the four qualities before entering into an inquiry about Brahman, and interprets "atha" as merely initiating the beginning of a new topic.[52]

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