Here, ends the Second Pada of the Third Adhyaya.

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इति श्रीमत्कृष्णद्वैपायनकृतब्रह्मसूत्रेषु तृतीयाध्यायस्य द्वितीयः पादः समाप्तः

iti śrīmatkṛṣṇadvaipāyanakṛtabrahmasūtreṣu tṛtīyādhyāyasya dvitīyaḥ pādaḥ samāptaḥ

Here, ends the Second Pada of the Third Adhyaya.

***

॥तृतीयोऽध्यायः॥

THIRD ADHYAYA

.. tṛtīyo’dhyāyaḥ ..

Third Pada

.. tṛtīyaḥ pādaḥ ..

He who, overcoming Maya by His Pari Shakti, ever devotes His attributes and deeds (to the good of his creation), may that God Krishna, whose body is Pure Intelligence, shine forth in my mind.

Note: The verse may be applied to Shri Chaitanya also whose body Krishna took for the manifestation of his deeds and qualities.

In this Pada is treated the methods of meditating on the various attributes of the Lord. The fact here is this. In the Own Form of the Supreme Self, the Highest Person, there exist always manifest many eternally perfect forms, all mysterious and wonderful, as there exist in the crystalline gem many hues and colours. Understanding that the Lord is fulness and perfection, without being limited by these forms and yet fully mainfest through every one of these, the man selects any one of these, suitable to his taste, as a special object of his worship and meditation. Every form of the Lord has a certain number of qualities specific to it. The form has other qualities. The man must meditate on the specific form chosen by him, with the attributes taught about that particular form: but all the same the attributes taught about the other forms, and not taught about his chosen form, should also be meditated upon as existing in his special object of worship. Thus he who meditates on Brahman as mind (as is taught in the Taittiriya Upanishad, Bhriguvalli) must collate all the attributes of the mind not only from his own particular Vedic Shakha, but from other Shakhas also where meditation on Brahman in the form of mind is taught. Of course, in meditating on Brahman as mind, he must not bring together attributes not belonging to mind (such as, those of food, though Brahman is taught to be meditated upon as food also). In fact, only those attributes are to be supplied from other Shakhas, which are taught about the particular object of meditation, and not any attributes in general.

Others, however, say thus. One Supreme Brahman manifests as Rama or Krishna, etc., like an actor, appearing at different times and places, under different characters, and shows forth different qualities and performs various acts, appropriate to the occasion; therefore, all attributes taught regarding one manifestation may, without incongruity, be meditated upon with regard to another manifestation. There is nothing impossible or unharmonious in this: because the entity manifesting is one though he shows forth his different aspects.

It may be objected that some attributes and forms are so self-contradictory that they cannot be the object of simultaneous meditation; thus sweetness and luxuriousness are incompatible in the meditation on Rama while they are perfectly harmonious attributes in Krishna: while peacefulness and austerity are good attributes to meditate in Nara-Narayana, but hardly in others: so also ferocity, power and lordliness go in very well with the meditation on Man-Lion, but not with others: meditation on all these attributes (i. e:, sweetness, lordliness, luxuriousness, peacefulness, austereness, ferocity, etc.) simultaneously, is evidently incongruous. So also there are certain forms which are incongruous.

Thus meditating on the Avataras of Fish or Boar as playing on lute, or carrying conch, discus, bow and arrow: or meditating on an Avatara in human form, such as Kama and Krishna, as having horns, tail, mane, tusk, etc., would be an incongruous form-meditation. Of such meditations, it is said in the Mahabharata:

He who meditates on the Atman as different from its true form, has committed the greatest sin, for he is a thief who steals the self.

Therefore both on the basis of reason and of authority, such incongruous meditation should not be done.

To this, it is answered that by collation of qualities is meant the collation of those, qualities only which are suitable for a simultaneous meditation and not of incongruous qualities.

Now, meditating on attributes not taught in connection with a particular Upasana but taught with regard to another, may be of two sorts: either meditating on the essence of those attributes, or merely forming a mental idea of them. The first kind belongs to the class of devotees called Svanishtha. The last belongs to those called Ekantins. It will be taught in the next Pada, that there are three sorts of worshippers, Svanishtha, Parinishthita, and Nirapeksha. Among these three kinds, the Svanishthas (who are generally office-bearers in the Cosmic hierarchy, holding posts like those of the four-faced Brahma», etc.), are universalists — they have equal love for all forms; and meditate on all forms of the Lord and always collate all the attributes of the «Lord found in every form, in their meditation. There is no incongruity in meditating in one form with attributes belonging to all diverse contrary forms. For it is possible to realise all these contradictory attributes in one form, in a succession of time, as it is possible to see different hues in the prism at different times. The other two kinds of devotees-the Parinishthita and Nirapekshas are, however, less liberal — (they may be called sectarians, jealous to maintain the dignity of their particular God). Their love is not universal, but limited — not Sama-priti, but Vishama-priti. They meditate only on those attributes which their particular Form of the Adorable manifests, and they see only those attributes and are blind to others. Though they know that the Lord has other forms and other attributes also, but they, being exclusionists, do not meditate over those attributes nor look at those Forms: for they are of no use to them, nor those forms and attributes become manifest to them. This will be made clearer in a subsequent Adhikarana. As regards the verse from the Mahabharata, it denounces those hard-hearted Advaitins who think the Lord to be mere knowledge without bliss and other attributes. (They deny bliss to Brahman, and hold that joy is an attribute of matter and not of spirit).

But they forget that the whole purport of the scriptures is to teach that Brahman is full of all auspicious qualities, and is not Nirguna; and that by knowing this Saguna Brahman, a man becomes free from all fears; and that the scriptures teach that this Saguna Brahman should be searched after by the seeker of liberation. In the Dahara Vidya (Chhandogya Upanishad, VIII., 1. 1-6) the Lord is taught to possess all auspicious qualities, and it is said: «That which is within this lotus, He is to be sought for, He is to be understood». Similarly, in the Taittiriya Upanishad II, 4. 1, it is declared that knowing Brahman as bliss a man does not fear anything.

The Advaitins hold that these Gunas do not really belong to Brahman but are attributed to It as a convention or as a superimposition. But this is a mere fancy of theirs There can be no superimposition — for it occurs there where a quality really exists in one thing, and is wrongly imagined to exist in another, as the red colour of the lotus is superimposed on the white crystal. But these Gunas (e.g., omnipotence, omniscience, bliss, etc.) are not found in anybody else; and so they could not be an object of superimposition in Brahman, when they are non-existent outside of Brahman. Nor can these Gunas be said to be merely conventional: for there is no statement to that effect in the scriptures. They are real concrete attributes of Brahman, and are not to be taken in a metaphorical or allegorical sense.

But, says the objector, the scriptures do use metaphorical language: as in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, V., 8-1, ‘…’, «Let him meditate on speech as cow». But, because in one passage the scriptures make a metaphorical statement, to hold that all statements about Brahman are metaphorical, is a sign of weakness of intellect for, if this were so, then the statement «Let him meditate on Atman» would also become metaphorical; and meditation of every kind will come to an end. Even the Advaitins admit that some meditations, at least, are not taught metaphorically in the scriptures, but are true literally. Thus in explaining the Sutras III, 3. 12 and III., 3. 38, even the Advaitins hold that meditation on Brahman as bliss is actually taught; Brahman is not to be imagined as bliss, for the purposes of meditation, as the speech is imagined as cow. But Brahman is bliss. Similarly, in explaining III., 3. 38, they say that the Jiva and the Lord must be meditated upon as identical — not imagined as identical, but that they are identical. Thus according to the Advaitins also, the scriptures do teach in some places, meditation on real attributes and not on fictitious qualities. Why should not then the scriptures be construed consistently throughout? Why should some attributes be taken as real Gunas of Brahman, and the others as fictitious superimpositions?

But, says the Advaitin, the scriptures describe Brahman as Nirguna: and, therefore, we say that all the so-called Gunas of Brahman are really crutches for meditation, and do not properly belong to Brahman, who is Nirguna. To this we reply, that all such Nirguna passages are to be construed as teaching that Brahman has not the Gunas of Prakriti (Sattva, Rajas and Tamas) — but he possesses transcendental non-Prakritic Guna. In the view that the qualities are not separate from the qualified, everything is reconciled.

The Gunas to be meditated upon are of two sorts — the Gunas constituting the spiritual essence of the object of meditation, and the Gunas appertaining to the form of such object. The Gunas like omnipotence, omniscience, etc., belong to the first kind; the Gunas like smiling face, etc. are of the second kind. The Gunas of the first kind may all be collated together in a single meditation. In fact, the full conception of the Lord is possible only in this way, by bringing together all His attributes, scattered in different passages of the scriptures.

Adhikarana I — The Lord is the Quest

Vishaya: Now in order to establish’ that all Gunas may be comprised in a single act of meditation, the author first proves that ‘the Lord is the object of search in all the Vedas and that all the Vedas declare Him. All texts about meditation may be considered as Vishaya texts in this connection.

Doubt: Is Brahman to be known according to the modes of meditation taught by one’s own Sakha, or according to the modes taught in other Shakhas also?

Purvapaksha: The Shakhas being different, and their teachings being different, Brahman must be realised according to the practices taught in one’s own Sakha. The omission should not be supplied from other Shakhas.

Siddanta: This view is refuted in the following Sutra:

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