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From these again the subtle bodies, and the gross elements, and, gradually, all the world- phenomena, are developed. All those world- phenomena are without beginning or end. It is evolved, so to speak, from Brahman, and is rebsorbed into it, according to the theory of Karman and Sansara, which we shall speak about further on in detail. (3) The doctrineoftlia soul. This doctrine teaches that the individual soul is not dif- ferent from Brahman the highest self. The plurality of souls is not really or absolutely true, but is only practically or phenome- nally true. It is an illusion as it were. The ever changeable Upadhis, *. e., the whole psychological apparatus with merits and demerits, ^. e., the fruits of our actions accompany the soul in its cycle of migra- tion from- birth to birth, without sully- ing or affecting the pure nature of the soul, which is no other than Brahman. This is the great doctrine of Metempsy- chosis or the Transmigration of the SouL (4) The doctmne of the future state after death. According to this doctrine, there are ‘four states or ways. (1) Pjtriyana, 16 A liECTTTRB OTS path of the manes, which is meant for the performers of good deeds. (2) Devayana, i,e,f the divine way which is meant for worshippers of the qualified Brahman, e.^ Iswara, and not the absolute Brahman. .(3) The third way is for the wicked and sinful. (4) Salvation, which is not a way but rather a state. A true Vedantist, realising the unreality of the world, under- standing the unity of souls, and acquiring the true knowledge of Atma or Soul, (Obtains final deliverance. A brief summary -.of the Vedanta, as 'expounded by Sankara, will not be out of place here. It is this : — ^Whatever is, is .in reality one. There truly .exists .only 'One universal Being, .called Brahman or Paramatman, — ^the highest self. It is pure .being, pure intelligence or .thought. Brahman is not .a thinking being, but .thought itself. It is absolutely destitute .of qualities. This Brahman is associated with a -certain power called Avidya, or .Nescience, to which the whole world is -due for its very existence. ^ It is, ^ as .it were, a principle of illusion. Being associated with this principle, Brahman projects the appearance of the world ja. the sameway as. a. magician produces •TjaE VEDANTA PHILOSOPHY. n illusory appearances of things. Brah- man, in so far as it is associated with Maya, may be called the material cause of the world. Brahman in this view is called > Iswara, the ruler of the universe. Maya, under the guidance of this Iswara, modi- fies itself hy progressive evolution into all the individual existences, distinguished by special names and forms, of which th© world consists. In all those apparently individual forms of existense, the one in- visible Brahman is present, but on account of Maya, it appears to be broken up into ' a multitude of intellectual or sentient principles, the Jivas or individual souls. The whole aggregate of i3hysical organs and mental functions, which separate one Jiva from another, is the offspring of Maya, and as such, is not really true. The non-enlightened soul cannot look through and beyond Maya, which, like a veil, hides from it its true nature. It blindly identifies itself with its bodily orga- nism, and burdens itself with merits and demerits, which are the causes of its birth or rebirth, while Iswara allots to each soul the form of embodiment to which it is en- titled by its previous actions. At the end of each of the great world-periods or kalpas, 38 . ' A LECTURE ON Iswara draws back tke whole worlds into himself which ‘is then dissolved into no'n- distinct Maya, while the individual souls ” remain in a condition resembling deep slumber which is the nature of - Unde- veloped Maya. After some time Iswara sends forth a new material world, and the old round of birth, and action and death begins janew, and continues to ail eternity. The means- of escaping from this endless Sansara can never be found by observing the Vedic injunctions, which only lead men to temporary good fortune. The final deliverance is possible only by know- ing the higher truth. The knowledge of non-duality of Brahman and the indivi- dual soul, as taught by the great saying “ That art thou’’, enables a man to find an escape from this miserable cycle of migration. , ' Before we come to the details of this system of Sankara, it will be proper to qompare it with that of Bamanuja. Both systems teach Adwaita, c., non- duality or monism. Sankara's non-duality is pure and rigorous, i e., absolute unity, whereas Bamanuja’s Adwaita is a qualified non-duality, i. e., non-duality with a differ- ence. Therefore it is called Yisistadwaita, THE VEDANTA PHILOSOPHT. 19 According to Sankara, all plurality and dif- ference must be illusory, whereas, according to Kamanuja, Brahman contains within itself elements of difference and plurality owing .to which it truly manifests itself in a diversified world. The Brahman of San- kara is in itself imj)ersonal, and is a homo- geneous- mass of objectless thought tran- scending all attributes. It becomes a per- sonal G-od as Iswara only when associated with Maya. Bamanuja’s Brahman, on the other hand, is essentially a personal God, the all-powerful and all-wise ruler of a real - worldpermeated and animated by his spirit. Sankara’s individual soul is Brahman in so far as limited bytheunrealUpadhis (names and forms) due to Maya. The individual soul of Itamanuja, on the. other hand, is really individual. The release from the ■cycle of migration, of the soul means, according to Sankara, the absolute merging •of the individual soul, due to the dismissal .of Nescience or Avidya. According to Ramanuja, it means the soul’s passing from the. troubles of earthly life into a kind of heaven. According to him, there is no distinction between a higher knowledge and a lower knowledge, since he does not distin- guish between a higher and lower Brahman. 20 A LEODTITRE ON Gentlemen, ib will not be our business to discuss the merits of Ramanuja’s system as we are only concerned with that of Sankara. As we are now in a position to examine minutely the principal doctrines of San- kara’s system, it will be useful to place before us, for occasional reference, a very short synopsis of the progressive ideas in science and philosophy of Europe of the present day. Natural science divides the whole world into organic and inorganic forms or bodies. Linnceiia, in the beginning of the 18 th century, arranged all organic forms into species, genera, orders, and classes. His idea was that, though individuals might be developments of one primary form, the species, the genera, or the orders, must be distinct creations, and that the one cannot bo developed from the other. This view was supported by Cuvier, who by his addi- tional experience in zoology, maintained that there were fresh creations after long geological periods. This theory of special acts of creation is called the teleological, or dualistic, theory of the universe. This theory has received its death-blow from the more modern monistic theory of de- THE VEDANTA PHILOSOPHY, 21 velopment. Lamarck •■was the first cnuncia- tor of this theory of descent or development by inheritance ^ and adaptation. This was afterwards satisfactorily demonstrated by Darwin and Wallace. This scientific theory of the present day holds that all organic forms are deducible from one pri- mary form. In the same way !K!ant pro- pounded his theory of resolving all in- organic forms into one primary mass. This is the celebrated gas-theory. This theory conjectures that the whole inorganic world was at first in a gaseous state, from ' which various forms were gradually deve- loped.^ Sir Charles Lyell refuted the theory of periodic creations propounded by Cuvier, by showing that the formation of the solid crust of the globe was one of continued development. Having thus established the theory of development in the inorganic and organic departments of nature, science maintains that serration willing, thinking, &c., in the human mind are mere develop- ments from lower forms. It also holds out the hope of connecting the organic with the inorganic development. Some theories are even proposed, of which the well-known carbon-theory is one. Thus it will be seen that science proposes to explain the origin •22 A LECTURE ON of the world purely mechanically, resolving all phenomena into one primordial mat- ter, with its capabilities such as force, &c. Here science stops. This is scientific monism. 'Ihen comes the latest philo- sophy, and boldly asserts that we cannot know anything about matter S6, • i. e., the external world in itself. The percep- tion of the material world arises through our understanding projecting its affections (nerve-irritations, sensations, *&c.,) by •means of causality in space and time. In other words the external world is nothing but a representation of the individual intel- lect, by its own innate forms. That is to say the' a'ffections of the intellect are only projected in space and time and appear to be governed by the law of causality. To make this more clear, our sensations and nerve •irritations (which are our only guide in knowing both the mediate and immediate •objects, L e , the sensations ■ and the external world) are stretched out as it were by- our intellect in space and time and they appear to . follow one another • as 'cause and effect. Thus bodies are nothing more than affections that is, forces, repre- sented as filhng space. Material obj ects may therefore be called force-filled si^aces. Tak- THE VEDANTA PHILOSOPHY.