are for the greater part unintelligible—the meaning which Sa@nkara ascribes to them; while a reference to other bhâshyas may not impossibly change our views at once.—Meanwhile, we will consider the question as to the unbroken uniformity of Vedântic tradition from another point or view, viz. by enquiring whether or not the Sûtras themselves, and the Sa@nkara-bhâshya, furnish any indications of there having existed already at an early time essentially different Vedântic systems or lines of Vedântic speculation.

Beginning with the Sûtras, we find that they supply ample evidence to the effect that already at a very early time, viz. the period antecedent to the final composition of the Vedânta-sûtras in their present shape, there had arisen among the chief doctors of the Vedânta differences of opinion, bearing not only upon minor points of doctrine, but affecting the most essential parts of the system. In addition to Bâdarâyana himself, the reputed author of the Sûtras, the latter quote opinions ascribed to the following teachers: Âtreya, Âsmarathya, Audulomi, Kârshnâgini, Kâsakritsna, Jaimini, Bâdari. Among the passages where diverging views of those teachers are recorded and contrasted three are of particular importance. Firstly, a passage in the fourth pâda of the fourth adhyâya (Sûtras 5-7), where the opinions of various teachers concerning the characteristics of the released soul are given, and where the important discrepancy is noted that, according to Audulomi, its only characteristic is thought (kaitanya), while Jaimini maintains that it possesses a number of exalted qualities, and Bâdarâyana declares himself in favour of a combination of those two views.—The second passage occurs in the third pâda of the fourth adhyâya (Sûtras 7-14), where Jaimini maintains that the soul of him who possesses the lower knowledge of Brahman goes after death to the highest Brahman, while Bâdari—whose opinion is endorsed by Sa@nkara—teaches that it repairs to the lower Brahman only—Finally, the third and most important passage is met with in the fourth pâda of the first adhyâya (Sûtras 20-22), where the question is discussed why in a certain passage of the Brhadâranyaka Brahman is referred to in terms which are strictly applicable to the individual soul only. In connexion therewith the Sûtras quote the views of three ancient teachers about the relation in which the individual soul stands to Brahman. According to Âsmarathya (if we accept the interpretation of his view given by Sa@nkara and Sa@nkara's commentators) the soul stands to Brahman in the bhedâbheda relation, i.e. it is neither absolutely different nor absolutely non-different from it, as sparks are from fire. Audulomi, on the other hand, teaches that the soul is altogether different from Brahman up to the time when obtaining final release it is merged in it, and Kâsakritsna finally upholds the doctrine that the soul is absolutely non-different from Brahman; which, in, some way or other presents itself as the individual soul.

That the ancient teachers, the ripest outcome of whose speculations and discussions is embodied in the Vedânta-sûtras, disagreed among themselves on points of vital importance is sufficiently proved by the three passages quoted. The one quoted last is specially significant as showing that recognised authorities—deemed worthy of being quoted in the Sûtras—denied that doctrine on which the whole system of Sa@nkara hinges, viz. the doctrine of the absolute identity of the individual soul with Brahman.

Turning next to the Sa@nkara-bhâshya itself, we there also meet with indications that the Vedântins were divided among themselves on important points of dogma. These indications are indeed not numerous: Sa@nkara, does not on the whole impress one as an author particularly anxious to strengthen his own case by appeals to ancient authorities, a peculiarity of his which later writers of hostile tendencies have not failed to remark and criticise. But yet more than once Sa@nkara also refers to the opinion of 'another,' viz., commentator of the Sûtras, and in several places Sa@nkara's commentators explain that the 'other' meant is the Vrittikâra (about whom more will be said shortly). Those references as a rule concern minor points of exegesis, and hence throw little or no light on important differences of dogma; but there are two remarks of Sa@nkara's at any rate which are of interest in this connexion. The one is made with reference to Sûtras 7-14 of the third pâda of the fourth adhyâya; 'some,' he says there, 'declare those Sûtras, which I look upon as setting forth the siddhânta view, to state merely the pûrvapaksha;' a difference of opinion which, as we have seen above, affects the important question as to the ultimate fate of those who have not reached the knowledge of the highest Brahman.—And under I, 3, 19 Sa@nkara, after having explained at length that the individual soul as such cannot claim any reality, but is real only in so far as it is identical with Brahman, adds the following words, 'apare tu vâdinah pâramârthikam eva jaivam rûpam iti manyante asmadîyâs ka kekit,' i.e. other theorisers again, and among them some of ours, are of opinion that the individual soul as such is real.' The term 'ours,' here made use of, can denote only the Aupanishadas or Vedântins, and it thus appears that Sa@nkara himself was willing to class under the same category himself and philosophers who—as in later times the Râmânujas and others—looked upon the individual soul as not due to the fictitious limitations of Mâyâ, but as real in itself; whatever may be the relation in which they considered it to stand to the highest Self.

From what precedes it follows that the Vedântins of the school to which Sa@nkara himself belonged acknowledged the existence of Vedântic teaching of a type essentially different from their own. We must now proceed to enquire whether the Râmânuja system, which likewise claims to be Vedânta, and to be founded on the Vedânta-sûtras, has any title to be considered an ancient system and the heir of a respectable tradition.

It appears that Râmânuja claims—and by Hindu writers is generally admitted—to follow in his bhâshya the authority of Bodhâyana, who had composed a vritti on the Sûtras. Thus we read in the beginning of the Srî-bhâshya (Pandit, New Series, VII, p. 163), 'Bhagavad-bodhâyanakritâm vistîrnâm brahmasûtra-vrittim pûrvâkâryâh samkikshipus tanmatânusârena sûtrâksharâni vyâkhyâsyante.' Whether the Bodhâyana to whom that vritti is ascribed is to be identified with the author of the Kalpa-sûtra, and other works, cannot at present be decided. But that an ancient vritti on the Sûtras connected with Bodhâyana's name actually existed, there is not any reason to doubt. Short quotations from it are met with in a few places of the Srî-bhâshya, and, as we have seen above, Sa@nkara's commentators state that their author's polemical remarks are directed against the Vrittikâra. In addition to Bodhâyana, Râmânuja appeals to quite a series of ancient teachers—pûrvâkâryâs—who carried on the true tradition as to the teaching of the Vedânta and the meaning of the Sûtras. In the Vedârthasa@ngraha—a work composed by Râmânuja himself—we meet in one place with the enumeration of the following authorities: Bodhâyana, Ta@nka, Dramida, Guhadeva, Kapardin, Bharuki, and quotations from the writings of some of these are not unfrequent in the