The Brahma Sutra · Book 3: Sadhana · Pada 4 · Vidya as a human aim, and the question of renunciation

The fourth pada opens the debate that gives the chapter its name: is the knowledge of the Self that the Upanishads teach a limb of ritual, informing the man who sacrifices, or an independent means to the end of man? 3.4.1 states Badarayana’s answer first: from that, from knowledge, comes the purpose of man, because scripture says so, “he who knows the Self crosses sorrow” (Chandogya 7.1.3), “he who knows that highest Brahman becomes Brahman” (Mundaka 3.2.9), “the knower of Brahman reaches the highest” (Taittiriya 2.1), “for him there is delay only until he is freed from the body; then he is complete” (Chandogya 6.14.2), “this Self is to be seen” down to “so far goes immortality” (Brihadaranyaka 4.5.6 to 4.5.15). Then Jaimini, in six sutras. 3.4.2: the Self is the agent and so stands in a subordinate relation to action, and the knowledge of it, through its object, serves action, as the sprinkling of the rice grains fits them for the offering; so the texts about the fruit of knowledge are praise (arthavada), like “he whose ladle is of parna wood hears no evil sound” and “by anointing his eyes he wards off the enemy’s eye”; the knowledge of a self that outlives the body is of no use in worldly work, where the aims are visible, and of every use in Vedic work, whose fruits come after death; “free from sin” and the like glorify this transmigrating self, the one called “dear” (Brihadaranyaka 2.4.5).

3.4.3: scripture shows the conduct of knowers, “Janaka of Videha sacrificed with many gifts” (3.1.1), Ashvapati’s “sirs, I am about to sacrifice” (Chandogya 5.11.5), Uddalaka teaching his son as a householder; if knowledge alone sufficed, why would they take on such trouble, when “a man who finds honey in the arka tree does not go to the forest”? 3.4.4: scripture says it directly, “what a man does with knowledge, with faith, with the Upanishad is more powerful” (Chandogya 1.1.10), knowledge in the instrumental case, a means of work. 3.4.5: “then his knowledge and his work take hold of him” (Brihadaranyaka 4.4.2), the two beginning their fruit together. 3.4.6: scripture enjoins works on him who has read the Veda in a teacher’s house and settled in his own (Chandogya 8.15), and reading reaches to understanding. 3.4.7: and the fixed rules, “doing works here let a man wish to live a hundred years” (Isha 2), “the agnihotra is a session that ends only with old age or death” (Shatapatha 12.4.1.1). 3.4.8 answers for Badarayana: his view holds, because scripture teaches something more than the agent, and is seen to do so. If the Upanishads taught only that the embodied agent outlives the body, Jaimini would be right; what they teach is the Lord, free of agency and of every mark of samsara, “who sees all and knows all” (Mundaka 1.1.9), “from fear of whom the wind blows” (Taittiriya 2.8), “by whose command, Gargi, sun and moon stand apart” (Brihadaranyaka 3.8.9), “it thought, may I be many” (Chandogya 6.2.3); and the knowledge of that Self promotes no action; it cuts action off, as 3.4.16 will say.

The texts that name the “dear” self go on to the higher Self, “from this great being the Vedas were breathed forth” (Brihadaranyaka 2.4.10), “who passes beyond hunger and thirst, sorrow, delusion, age and death” (3.5.1), “he appears in his own form, that is the highest person” (Chandogya 8.12.3), since the Lord is the true nature of the embodied self, “that you are,” “there is no other seer than he.” 3.4.9: the showing is equal on the other side: “knowing this, the sages descended from Kavasha said, why should we study, why should we sacrifice? Knowing this, the ancients did not offer the agnihotra”; “having known that Self, Brahmins rise above the desire for sons, wealth and worlds and wander as mendicants” (Brihadaranyaka 3.5.1); “so far goes immortality; having said this Yajnavalkya went away into the forest” (4.5.15). Ashvapati’s sacrifice belongs to a vidya of the qualified Brahman, and even there knowledge is not subordinate to the rite, no heading or other proof making it so. 3.4.10: the direct statement is not universal; “with knowledge” in Chandogya 1.1.10 is the knowledge of that section, the udgitha. 3.4.11: there is distribution, as with the hundred: “give a hundred to these two” gives fifty to each, and knowledge takes hold of one man and work of another; besides, the passage speaks of the man who desires, “so much for the man who desires,” and starts afresh for the man who does not. 3.4.12: the injunction of works is for him who has merely read the Veda, since “read” is all the text says; the understanding of rites that comes from reading qualifies a man for them, and the knowledge of the Self, having its own purpose, is no such qualification. 3.4.13: the fixed rules name no knower, so they do not single him out.

3.4.14: or the permission of works is for the praise of knowledge, since the Isha goes on “thus work does not cling to the man”: even a lifetime of works leaves no stain on him who knows. 3.4.15: and some, by acting as they please, show that nothing else is needed, “knowing this, the men of old did not wish for offspring; what shall we do with offspring, we who have this Self, this world?” (Brihadaranyaka 4.4.22), since the fruit of knowledge is present and does not ripen later as the fruits of works do. 3.4.16: and scripture teaches the destruction: knowledge destroys the whole apparent world of acts, agents and fruits that nescience has spread and that every qualification for works rests on, “when all has become the Self for him, with what should he see another?” (4.5.15); make this knowledge the prerequisite of works and the qualification for works is cut off at the root. 3.4.17: and knowledge belongs to those who keep lifelong celibacy, for scripture names them, “there are three branches of the law” (Chandogya 2.23.1), “those who in the forest practice faith and austerity” (5.10.1), “mendicants wander forth desiring that world alone” (Brihadaranyaka 4.4.22), “let him wander forth from the student’s state”; they perform no agnihotra, so in their case knowledge has no work to serve, and these orders are open whether or not a man has been a householder or paid the three debts. What is decided: knowledge of Brahman is an end in itself, it serves no rite, and the texts that promise its fruit mean what they say.

The last sutra rested on the orders that keep celibacy. 3.4.18: Jaimini denies that the texts quoted establish them: they are a mention (paramarsha), no injunction, since they carry no injunctive verb and each has another purpose, and scripture forbids those orders. “There are three branches of the law: sacrifice, study and gifts are the first; austerity the second; the student living in his teacher’s house the third; all these reach the worlds of the blessed; he who stands firm in Brahman (brahmasamstha) reaches immortality” (Chandogya 2.23.1) refers to the orders only to praise the last clause; the householder’s order is established by the texts that enjoin the agnihotra on him, and the other orders rest on smriti and custom, which direct scripture overrides, “he who removes the fire is a murderer of the gods,” “having brought the teacher his fee, do not cut off the line of children” (Taittiriya 1.11.1), “the world does not belong to him who has no son”; “those who in the forest” teaches the path of the gods and says nothing about an order, “austerity is the second” may name no order at all, and “mendicants wander forth” praises the world they seek. Jaimini argues, Shankara notes, without reference to the Jabala text that enjoins wandering forth outright.

3.4.19 answers: Badarayana holds that the other order is to be entered upon, because scripture states it as equal; the text sets the celibate orders beside the householder’s on one footing, and as the householder’s order, enjoined elsewhere, is here only mentioned, so are the others, as a text that enjoins wearing the sacred thread on the left shoulder mentions wearing it round the neck and on the right, which are enjoined elsewhere; “austerity is the second” must name an order, since the text counts three branches and the many duties can be fitted into three only by being assigned to the orders, sacrifice marking the householder and “student” marking the first order, so austerity marks the forest-dweller, and “in the forest” says the same. 3.4.20: or the passage is itself an injunction, as with the carrying of the fuel: “let him approach carrying the fuel below, for above he carries it for the gods” would read as one sentence about the lower carrying, and yet the clause about the gods is taken as an injunction because the upper carrying is enjoined nowhere else; so here, since no other injunction of the orders is found, the passage enjoins them, though that breaks its unity.

Even as a mention it enjoins standing firm in Brahman, and that belongs to the wandering mendicant alone: “austerity” does not reach him, since it names the hermit’s mortification of the body; the orders are known to be four, so a reference to three would be unwarranted; and the text contrasts three who reach the blessed worlds with one who reaches immortality, as one says “Devadatta and Yajnadatta are dull, Vishnumitra is clever” and never “Devadatta and Yajnadatta are dull, one of them is clever.” Brahmasamstha means fulfilment in Brahman to the exclusion of all other activity, which members of the three orders cannot have, since they are said to suffer loss by neglecting their works, while the mendicant has no works to neglect and his restraint of the senses only helps; “renunciation is Brahman, for Brahman is the highest,” “the renouncers whose nature is purified by the yoga of renunciation” (Mundaka 3.2.6), “whose minds are set on him, whose Self is he” (Gita 5.17). Nor does this make knowledge useless, since standing firm in Brahman is knowledge itself at work. And the Jabala text stands: “having finished studentship let him become a householder, from the household a forest-dweller, from the forest let him wander forth; or let him wander forth from studentship, or from the house, or from the forest,” which names no disqualified class and makes the mendicant’s state a means to the knowledge of Brahman, “the wandering mendicant, robed in ochre, shaven, without possessions, pure, free of malice, living on alms, becomes fit for Brahman.” The orders of celibacy are enjoined by scripture, and knowledge, enjoined on those who enter them, stands free of works.

“That udgitha is the best of all essences, the highest, holding the highest place, the eighth” (Chandogya 1.1.3); “this earth is the Rik, the fire the Saman” (1.6.1); “this world is the piled fire” (Shatapatha 10.1.2.2); “the hymn is this earth” (Aitareya Aranyaka 2.1.2.1). Do such sentences praise the udgitha and the rest, or enjoin meditations? The opponent says praise, since they are attached to parts of the rite, like “the earth is the ladle,” “the sun is the tortoise,” “heaven is the ahavaniya,” which glorify the ladle and its fellows. 3.4.21 answers: they are no mere praise, because of their newness; as injunctions they teach something new, as praise they would be idle, since praise has a use only beside the injunction it serves, and the udgitha is enjoined in quite another part of the Veda; “the earth is the ladle” stands next to its injunction, and these do not. 3.4.22: and because of the words of becoming: “let him meditate on the udgitha” (1.1.1), “let him meditate on the Saman” (2.2.1), “let him think: I am the hymn” (Aitareya Aranyaka 2.1.6), the optative forms that the Nyaya reckons the settled signs of injunction in every Veda; and each section names its own fruit, “he becomes a fulfiller of desires” (1.1.7), “he obtains wishes by his singing” (1.7.9). These texts enjoin meditations.

“Yajnavalkya had two wives, Maitreyi and Katyayani” (Brihadaranyaka 4.5.1); “Pratardana, son of Divodasa, came to the beloved abode of Indra” (Kaushitaki 3.1); “there lived Janashruti Pautrayana, a pious giver who kept open house” (Chandogya 4.1.1). Are the stories of the Upanishads told for the pariplava, the recital of tales enjoined at intervals through the year of the horse sacrifice, or do they introduce the vidyas beside them? The opponent says the pariplava, since they are tales and tales are enjoined there, which would make the Vedanta texts, like mantras, servants of the rite. 3.4.23 answers: no, because of the specification; under “he recites the pariplava” scripture names particular tales, “Manu, son of Vivasvat, the king,” and if every tale served, the naming would be pointless. 3.4.24: and because each story is bound into one sentence with its vidya: Maitreyi’s with “the Self is to be seen,” Pratardana’s with “I am prana, the conscious Self,” Janashruti’s with “air is the absorber”; they commend the teaching and ease its understanding, as the stories of the ritual texts, “he cut out his own omentum,” commend the injunctions beside them.

3.4.25 picks up 3.4.1: for this very reason, because knowledge accomplishes the purpose of man, there is no need of the kindling of the fire and the other works that the orders enjoin; knowledge does the work by itself, and the sutrakara closes the first adhikarana here before he adds a qualification.

Does knowledge then have no need at all of the works of the orders? 3.4.26: there is need of all of them, because scripture speaks of sacrifice and the rest; as with the horse. Knowledge, once risen, needs no help to bear its fruit; for its own rising it needs something, “him the Brahmins seek to know by study of the Veda, by sacrifice, by gifts, by austerity, by fasting” (Brihadaranyaka 4.4.22), “what people call sacrifice is in truth brahmacharya” (Chandogya 8.5.1), “the word all the Vedas record, all austerities proclaim, desiring which men live as students” (Katha 1.2.15), and smriti, “works wash away impurity, knowledge is the highest way; when the impurity is washed off, knowledge begins to act.” A horse is not yoked to a plow; it draws a chariot; so works serve knowledge in their own fit place, its birth, and nowhere else. 3.4.27: someone may say that “by sacrifice they seek to know” states a fact and enjoins nothing, praising knowledge where it prescribes no works. Even so, the seeker must be calm, restrained and the rest, since those are enjoined as parts of knowledge and must be carried out: “therefore he who knows this, having become calm, subdued, withdrawn, patient and collected, sees the Self in the Self” (Brihadaranyaka 4.4.23), where “therefore,” which praises, marks an injunction, and the Madhyandinas read “let him see.” The sacrifices are needed too, since the connection of the search for knowledge with them is new and so must be an injunction, as “therefore Pushan receives a crushed share, for he is toothless” is taken to enjoin crushed grain in every sacrifice that offers to Pushan; and the Gita teaches that works done without regard to their fruit become for the seeker of release a means of knowledge. Calmness and its fellows, tied to “he who knows this,” are the near means; sacrifice and the rest, tied to the seeking, the remote.

In the prana colloquy the Chandogya says of the knower of prana “there is nothing for him that is not food” (5.1.2) and the Brihadaranyaka “nothing he eats is not food, nothing he receives is not food” (6.1.14). Does this enjoin a license to eat anything, as calmness is enjoined, as an aid to knowledge? The opponent says it does, since an injunction gives the text something to do; it sets aside the rule of lawful and unlawful food for the knower of prana, as the killing of the victim sets aside “harm no creature” and the Vamadevya vow, “let him avoid no woman” (Chandogya 2.13.2), sets aside the rule about women. 3.4.28 answers: the permission of all food holds only in danger of life, since scripture shows it so. The sentence has no injunctive word; it states a fact; and it follows the statement that everything down to dogs is prana’s food, which no human body could eat, so it praises the knowledge of prana’s food. Scripture shows the real rule in the story of Ushasti Chakrayana (Chandogya 1.10): starving when hail had ruined the Kurus, he ate the half-eaten beans of a rich man, saying “I would not have lived had I not eaten them,” and refused the water, “that I can get anywhere,” and next day ate the stale leavings; in need a man may eat what is forbidden, and in no other case, as his refusal of the water shows. 3.4.29: and so the texts that distinguish food, “when the food is pure the whole being is pure” (7.26.2), stand unsublated. 3.4.30: smriti says the same, “he who in danger of life eats food from anywhere is no more stained than a lotus leaf by water,” while elsewhere it forbids spirits to the Brahmin on pain of boiling liquor poured down his throat. 3.4.31: and hence the scriptural word against acting as one pleases (akamakara), “therefore a Brahmin does not drink spirits” (Kathaka Samhita), which reads better if the “nothing is not food” text is praise.

This is apad-dharma, the law for distress: in ordinary conditions the rule holds strictly, and when life is at stake it gives way, for the knower and for anyone else.

3.4.26 made the works of the orders a means of knowledge. Must a man who wants no release, who only keeps his order, perform them? The opponent says either he need not, since they are enjoined as means of knowledge, or, if he must, they cannot be means of knowledge, a thing being unable to have a permanent and a non-permanent connection at once. 3.4.32 answers: the works of the orders are for him too, because they are enjoined, “as long as he lives he offers the agnihotra.” 3.4.33: and through their cooperation, since they are also enjoined as helps to knowledge, “him the Brahmins seek to know”; they help knowledge to arise, never its fruit, since knowledge is no injunction and its fruit is not produced by means as the new-moon rite needs its prayajas; and the two connections do not clash, one permanent, by the texts on lifelong agnihotra, with no knowledge as its result, the other occasional, by “they seek to know,” with knowledge as its result, as the one khadira post serves the sacrifice by a permanent tie and a man’s purpose by an occasional one. 3.4.34: in either case the very same works, because of the double mark: the agnihotra of the seeker is the ordinary agnihotra and no new rite, unlike the Kundapayins’ month-long agnihotra, since shruti speaks of sacrifices as already established and only employs them in the search, and smriti says “he who does the work to be done without aiming at its fruit” and names the forty-eight purifications as preparing for knowledge. 3.4.35: and scripture shows that those with such means are not overpowered by passion and the rest, “that Self does not perish which they find by brahmacharya” (Chandogya 8.5.3). One set of rites, then, serves two ends, the order a man lives in and the knowledge he seeks.

What of those who stand between the orders, the widower, the poor man with no means, who can enter none of them? The opponent says they are unfit for knowledge, since the works of the orders cause knowledge and they cannot do those works. 3.4.36 answers: those in between are fit too, since that is seen: Raikva with his cart (Chandogya 4.1) and Gargi, the daughter of Vachaknu (Brihadaranyaka 3.6, 3.8), knew Brahman. 3.4.37: smriti says it too, of Samvarta and others who went naked, paid no heed to the duties of the orders, and became great yogins. 3.4.38: and knowledge is furthered by special acts open to any man as such, prayer, fasting, propitiation of the gods, “by prayer alone a Brahmin is perfected; let him do other works or not, the kind-hearted one is called a Brahmin” (Manu 2.87); by the works of the orders done in former births, “perfected by many births he goes the highest way” (Gita 6.45); and since knowledge has a seen fruit, the end of ignorance, anyone who wants it is fit to learn where no obstacle stands. 3.4.39: better than this, though, is the other state, standing within an order, because of the marks: “on that path goes whoever knows Brahman and has done holy works and obtained splendor” (Brihadaranyaka 4.4.9), and “let a Brahmin not stay a single day outside an order; a year outside and he goes to ruin.” The man outside the orders may know; the man inside has the better means.

Once a man has entered an order of celibacy, may he come down again, to keep the lower order’s duties well, or under the push of passion? The opponent says there is no bar. 3.4.40 answers: for him who has become that there is no becoming other, by Jaimini’s view as well, because of the rule, the absence of such statements, and the want of custom. The rules forbid it, “mortifying the body for life in the teacher’s house” (Chandogya 2.23.2), “he goes to the forest and does not return, that is the Upanishad,” “dismissed by his teacher he follows one of the four orders by rule until release from the body”; the texts teach ascent and none teaches descent; and good men do not do it. No one may come down to do a lower duty well, since “one’s own duty badly done is better than another’s done well” (Gita 3.35) and duty is fixed by injunction, whatever a man happens to perform well; and passion does not excuse it, since a rule weighs more than passion. The “also” marks Jaimini’s agreement with Badarayana.

If a lifelong student (naishthika brahmacharin) breaks his vow of chastity through inattention, does he perform the expiation, “a student who has broken the vow sacrifices an ass to Nirriti”? 3.4.41 answers: not even the rite settled in the chapter on qualification (Mimamsa 6.8.22) applies to him, because smriti infers his fall and he is unfit for it: “he who has entered the duties of a naishthika and falls from them, that slayer of the Self, I see no expiation that could make him clean,” as a severed head cannot be set back on; the student for a term, of whom smriti says nothing like it, may purify himself by that rite. 3.4.42: some, however, hold it a minor sin, as with eating, and allow the expiation; this is explained in the Mimamsa (1.3.8). They argue that the breach, except with the teacher’s wife and the like, is nowhere listed among the deadly sins, that the text about the ass draws no line between the two kinds of student, that those who deny expiation have no text on their side, and that students who eat honey or meat against their vow are purified by a rite, so the smriti verse is meant to frighten the naishthika into care. The hermit who breaks his vows does the krichchhra penance for twelve nights and then settles in a place rich in herbs; the mendicant does the same without the Soma plant and takes the purifications of his state.

3.4.43: whether the fall of a man bound to celibacy be a deadly sin or a minor one, good men keep him outside, by smriti and by custom. Smriti speaks of him in the harshest terms, the verse of the slayer of the Self, and “he who touches a Brahmin who has broken his vow and fallen from his order, or a hanged man, or one eaten by worms, performs the chandrayana”; and the good neither sacrifice nor study nor attend weddings with such a man. Either way he stays outside.

Who carries out the meditations on parts of the rite, the udgitha and the rest: the sacrificer for whom the rite is done, or the priests? 3.4.44 states Atreya’s view: the lord of the sacrifice, because scripture declares the fruit, “there is rain for him, and he brings rain for others, who knowing this meditates on the fivefold Saman as rain” (Chandogya 2.3.2), and the fruit goes to the man entitled to the rite and its parts, within whose sphere the meditations fall; the text that gives the priest a fruit, “whatever wish he desires for himself or for the sacrificer he obtains by his singing,” is a stated exception. 3.4.45 answers with Audulomi: they are the priest’s work, since he is hired for that, the whole rite with its parts, and the meditations lie inside the performance, as the godohana rule binds the one who performs; scripture makes the udgatri the knower, “him Baka Dalbhya knew; he was the udgatri of the Naimishiyas” (1.2.13); that the fruit is said to go to the agent changes nothing, since the priest, except where the text says otherwise, acts for another. 3.4.46: and scripture says so, “whatever blessing the priests pray for at the sacrifice, they pray for the sacrificer’s good” (Shatapatha 1.3.1.26), “therefore an udgatri who knows this may say: what wish shall I win for you by my singing?” (Chandogya 1.7.8). The priest meditates; the sacrificer reaps.

Brihadaranyaka 3.5.1: “therefore let a Brahmin, having done with learning, wish to stand by childlikeness (balya); having done with childlikeness and learning, a muni; having done with muni-hood and non-muni-hood, a Brahmin.” Is the state of the muni enjoined here? The opponent says no: the injunction ends with “let him wish to stand by childlikeness,” “then a muni” has no injunctive verb, muni-hood is already covered by “learning,” since both words mean knowledge, and “then a Brahmin” is plainly a restatement with praise, so “then a muni” must be one too. 3.4.47 answers: there is an injunction of a further helper, a third beside childlikeness and learning, for him who is such, the renouncer who knows, in the case where his knowledge has not yet settled; as with injunctions and the rest. Muni-hood is new, since “muni,” from manana, reflection, means preeminence of knowledge, as in “I am Vyasa among the munis,” and names the last order only where the other orders stand beside it; new things are enjoined, so the clause is to be read “then let him be a muni,” and “having done with” treats it as the two others are treated.

It is enjoined on the renouncer who knows, since he is the topic, “having known that Self they wander as mendicants,” and it is enjoined for the case where, the sense of multiplicity still pressing, his knowledge has not yet become preeminent; as the setting up of the fires is enjoined as a help to the new-moon sacrifice, so muni-hood is enjoined as a help to knowledge in a text whose topic is knowledge. 3.4.48: why then does the Chandogya close with the householder, “having received his discharge from his teacher he settles in his own house” (8.15)? Because he is all: scripture lays on him the many works of his own order, troublesome as they are, and the duties of the other orders too, harmlessness and restraint, as far as his circumstances allow. 3.4.49: and the other orders are enjoined as muni-hood is, “austerity is the second, the student in his teacher’s house the third,” so the four orders are equally taught and equally to be lived, by choice among them or in succession.

What is the childlikeness the same text tells the renouncer to stand by? Childhood as an age cannot be chosen, so it means either a child’s conduct, relieving itself anywhere, eating, talking and acting as it likes, or a child’s inner state, free of guile, pride and the heat of the senses. The opponent says the conduct, since that is what people mean by the word, and the renouncer who knows is freed from the sin of it by scripture, as the sacrificer is freed from the sin of killing the victim. 3.4.50 answers: it means living without showing oneself, because of the connection. Where another reasonable sense is open, no reading may be adopted that makes another injunction void; a subsidiary is enjoined to further the principal, which here is the renouncer’s striving for knowledge, and a child’s conduct furthers nothing. Let him be free of guile and pride, and make no display of knowledge, learning or virtue, as a child whose powers have not ripened makes no display of itself; so the clause joins the chapter as a help to its main matter, and smriti agrees, “him whom no one knows as noble or base, as ignorant or learned, as well conducted or ill, he is a Brahmin; let the wise man go through life unknown, as if blind, dull and deaf.”

From 3.4.26 the pada has dealt with the means of knowledge. Does knowledge, their fruit, arise in this life only, or sometimes in the next? The opponent says this life only: knowledge comes from study and the rest, and no one takes up study meaning to know in a later birth; sacrifices too work only through study, since knowledge is produced only by the means of right knowledge. 3.4.51 answers: in this life also, when nothing obstructs the means at hand, since scripture shows it. When the means at work is not blocked by some other work whose fruit is ripening just then, knowledge ripens here; when it is blocked, in a later life. A work ripens when place, time and occasion present themselves, no rule says that what ripens one work ripens another, works with opposed fruits exist, scripture names each work’s fruit and nothing about its conditions, and the stronger means asserts itself while the weaker waits. A man may form an unspecified intention, that knowledge arise in this life or another; and study brings knowledge only by removing its obstacles, which scripture calls hard, “of whom many cannot even hear, whom many do not understand even when they hear; wonderful is the teacher, wonderful the one who finds him” (Katha 1.2.7). Vamadeva became Brahman in his mother’s womb, where no means could have been gathered, so means gathered in a former life bore fruit in a later one; and Krishna tells Arjuna that the man who fell short “obtains there the knowledge that belonged to his former body” and, “perfected by many births, goes the highest way” (Gita 6.43 to 6.45). Knowledge comes here or hereafter, as the obstacles fall.

Knowledge, then, comes sooner or later as the means are stronger or weaker. Is there a like gradation in its fruit, release, the better qualified knower reaching a higher release? 3.4.52 answers: there is no such rule for the fruit that is release, because of the declarations about that state, because of the declarations about that state. Every Vedanta text declares release to be of one kind, since release is Brahman and Brahman is of one nature: “not coarse, not fine” (Brihadaranyaka 3.8.8), “this Self is not so, not so” (3.9.26), “where one sees nothing else” (Chandogya 7.24.1), “that immortal Brahman is before” (Mundaka 2.2.11), “this great unborn Self, undecaying, undying, immortal, fearless, is Brahman” (Brihadaranyaka 4.4.25), “when the Self alone is all this, with what should he see another?” (4.5.15). The means may give knowledge a higher or lower degree; they cannot give one to release, which is no thing produced; it is the nature that always was, reached through knowledge; and knowledge itself has no degrees, since in its own nature it is only high, and a low knowledge would be no knowledge. Knowledge differs in arriving soon or late; release does not differ at all. Meditations on the qualified Brahman, “he who consists of mind, whose body is prana,” admit more and fewer qualities and so, like works, a scale of fruits, “as they meditate on him, so they become”; the meditation on Brahman without qualities admits none, as smriti says, “no higher road exists for anyone; they speak of inequality only where there are qualities.” Ramanuja reads the sutra as saying that there is no fixed rule as to when the knowledge that releases arises; for Shankara that was 3.4.51, and this sutra says that release has no degrees. The doubled clause marks the end of the adhyaya.