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" The phenomenal world or world of ordinary ex- perience ( Vyavalidra ) thus consists of a number of individual souls engaged in specific cognitions, voli- tions, and so on, and of the external material objects with which those cognitions and volitions are concerned. Neither the specific cognitions nor their objects are real in the true sense of the word, for both are altogether due to Mayd “The non-enlightened soul is unable to look through and beyond Mdyd, which, like a veil, hides from it its true nature. Instead of recognising itself to be Brahman, it blindly identifies itself with its adjuncts ( Upddhi ), the fictitious offspring of Mdyd, and thus looks for its true Self in the body, the sense-organs^ and the internal organ ( Manas ), t. e. the organ of specific cognition. The soul, which in reality is pure intelligence, non-active, infinite, thus becomes limit- ed in extent, as it were, limited in knowledge and power, an agent and enjoyer. Through its actions it burdens itself with merit and demerit (gnijrnq), the consequences of which it has to bear or enjoy in series of future embodied existences, the Lord — as a retributor and dispenser — allotting to each soul that form of embodiment to which it is entitled by its previous actions The round of birth, action, death, begins anew ( recurs ) to last to all eternity as it has lasted from all eternity. “ The means of escaping from this endless Sam- sdra, the way out of which can never be found by the non-enlightened soul, are furnished by the Veda. The KarmaMnda, indeed, whose purport it is to enjoin certain actions, cannot lead to final release ; for even the most meritorious works neces- sarily lead to new forms of embodied existence. And in the Jndnakdnda of the Veda also, two different parts have to be distinguished, viz., firstly, those chapters and passages which treat of Brahman in so far as related to the world, and hence characterised A by various attributes, i- e, of Is'vara or the lower Brahman ; and secondly, those texts which set forth the nature of the highest Brahman transcending all qualities, and the fundamental identity of the individual soul with that highest Bi’ahman. Devout meditation on Brahman as sug- gested by passages of the former kind does not directly lead to final emancipation ; the pious wor- shipper passes on his death into the world of the lower Brahmstn only, where he continues to exist as a> distinct individual soul — although in the enjoy- 59 ment of great power and knowledge — until at last he reaches the highest knowledge, and through it, final release. — That student of the Veda, on the other hand, whose soul has been enlightened by the texts embodying the higher knowledge of Brahman, whom passages such as the great saying ‘That art thou,* have taught that there is no difference between his true Self (stTOT) and the highest Self (totRJTT) obtains at the moment of death immediate final release i. e. he withdraws altogether from the influence of Mdyd, and asserts himself in the true nature ( Self), which is nothing else but the (tRJiTrJTT) absolute highest Brahman.”^ The excellence of this philosophy is that it begins with the idea of God, who is, as it were, a circle whose centre is everywhere, and whose circumference is nowhere; who transforms into His own likeness the mind that receives Him. It ‘is at once the centre and circumference of knowledge’ and is capable of continual expansion. It leads to all that is good, just, and beautiful. ‘It is at the same time the root and the blossom of all other systems of thought.’ It is, in short, ‘the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds.’ While general ideas are powerful, while abstractions are necessary, while mankind are apt to crave after perfection, and ideals have an acknowledged value, so long the Veddnta philosophy is sure to continue. All philosophic truth is the Vedanta rightly divined; !• See Tlie Sacred Books of the East Vol. XXXIV. The Veddnta SHtra with Scmkara^s Commentary, Translated by Dr, G. Thibaut, Introduction, p. xxiv. 60 and all good, philanthropic, philosophic truth-seekers in their best moments are unconscious Ved^ntins. It is, therefore, justly remarked that a genuine lik- ing for the Vedanta philosophy may be reckoned the touch-stone of a thinker's capacity for under- standing sublime philosophical thoughts, A hymn from Goethe's Proemium to Gottund Welt is quoted below in proof of the above remark. It conveys ‘something of the burning faith which ani- mated that extraordinary prophet of the scientific creed’. ‘It expresses’. Prof. Tyndal observes while quoting it in his Essays, ‘ the religion to which Science can ally itself.' “ To Him, who from eternity, self-stirred. Himself hath made by His creative word ! To Him, Supreme, who causeth faith to be. Trust, love, hope, power, and endless energy ! To Him, who, seek to name Him as we will, Unknown, within Himself abideth still ! Strain ear and eye, till sight and sense be dim ; Thou’lt find but faint similitudes of Him ; Yea, and thy spirit in her flight of flame. Still strives to gauge the symbol and the name : Charmed and compelled, thou climb’st from height to height, And round thy path the world shines wondrous bright ; Time, space, and size, and distance cease to be. And every step is fresh infinity. What were the God who sat outside to scan The spheres that ’neath His finger circling ran ? God dwells within and moves the world and moulds, Himself and Nature in one form enfolds; Thus all that lives in Him, and breathes, and is, Shall ne’er His puissance, ne’er His spirit miss. G1 The soul of man, too, is an universe ; Whence follows it that race with race concurs In naming all it knows of good and true, God — yea, its own God ; and with homage due, Sui'renders to His sway both earth and heaven ; Fears Him, and loves, where place for love is given.” It may be observed by students of philosophy how most of the ideas contained in the above noble hymn approximate to the transcendental doctrines of the Vedanta, though they are arrived at from a different point of view, by a representative writer and thinker of a school of the scientific creed which conceives philosophy to be ‘the knowledge of things divine and human, the science of principles, the science of sciences, the attainment of truth by the way of reason, or the systematisation of the concep- tions furnished by science^ It is hoped that Vedanta ideas will gain for the student in distinct- ness by being presented as above under different forms of expression ; and that the so-called obscuri- ties and perplexities of some of the ideas will be found to exist nowhere but in the misapprehension of uninitiated readers. We shall see as we proceed that the main object of the (^ankara Veddnta is the I’econciliation of reli- gion with philosophy and of philosophy with reli- gion. It delights to turn all things to the glory of God, for ‘Heaven hides nothing from its view^ It sees in the glass of temporal things, the phenomenal world, the image of the Divine, just as we see in the water the image of the sun. It maps out the whole realm of Knowledge ( ITR ) in ordered beauty, 62 and ‘ justifies the ways of God to man/ Dr. Newman says that 'real religion is founded on a true percep- tion of the relation of the soul to God and of God to the soul\ The be all and end all of true religion is said to be to re-unite the bond or relation between the Divine and the Human, which was severed by Nescience prevailing in the world. Lord Bacon observes that: — "In philosophy the contemplations of man do either penetrate unto God, or are circumferred to nature, or are reflected or reverted upon himself/' The object matter of philosophy may be distinguish- ed as God, or Nature, or Man. True philosophy seeks to bring their multiplicity to something like the unity underlying them all, and to remedy all ills arising from difterence. Thus, in both, religion and philosophy, the salient points are what a well-known maxim of the Vedanta declares, viz., (^^), (’T^JTTtJTT) — the soul, the universe, and God. The (^ankara Vedanta teaches the knowledge of the highest degree of generality, complete unified knowledge of the Highest Self, the Universe, and the Self; and restores the relation of God and the 1. The Advancement of Learning^ Book 11. V. 2. See also Bacon’s Novum Organum — Advancement of Learning^ Bk. III. Ch. I. ( Bohn's Philosophical Library, ) Philosophy has three objects, viz., God, nature, and man ; as also three kinds of rays — for nature strikes the human intellect with a direct ray, God with a refracted ray, from the inequality of the medium betwixt the Creator and the creatures, and man, as exhibited to himself, with a refracted ray; whence it is proper to divide philosophy into the doctrine of the Deity, the doctrine of nature^ and the doctrine of man.” 63 Self, and thus enables us to find heaven on earth by discovering (^iva (%5r-God) in Jiva-( ^#t^-man ) and man in God ; or in the words of the fourth Gospel ; — “As Thou, Father, art in me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us ( St. John, xvii, 21 ). The glory which Thou gavest me, I have given them ; that they may be one, even as we are one” (St. John, XVII. 22 ). The Vedanta is principally occupied Avith the thought of the ascent of the human soul, Self.