Colonel Kennepy on the Védanta System. 415 
mental perception ; that existence and perceptibility are convertible terms ; 
that external appearances and sensations are illusory, and would vanish into 
nothing, if the divine energy, which alone sustains them, were suspended for 
a moment.”’* But M. F. von Scuiecer has remarked, * In the Bhagavad- 
gita, and probably in all the works ascribed to VyAsa, the / édanta system 
predominates, of which he was the inventor ; hence, amongst the schools of 
Indian philosophy, we are best acquainted with this system. From the transla- 
tion of that work every one may easily convince himself that the Védanta is 
nothing but pure and complete pantheism, and there are many passages in 
the original which exhibit this in a stronger manner than it appears in the 
translation.”t Mr. Warp, also, has represented the Védanta to be a system 
of materialism, and the learned Director of the Society thus concludes his 
Essay on this school of Hindi philosophy :—‘ The notion, that the versatile 
world is an illusion (maya), that all which passes to the apprehension of the 
waking individual is but a phantasy presented to his imagination, and every 
seeming thing is unreal and all is visionary, does not appear to be the 
doctrine of the text of the Védanta. I have remarked nothing which 
countenances it in the Stas of Vyasa, nor in the gloss of Sancara, but 
much concerning it in the minor commentaries and elementary treatises.” 
The question, therefore, is to ascertain whether these remarks of Sir 
Witu1am Jones be correct or not. The Védanta theologists asserted, in a 
very remote age, “that all spirit is homogeneous, that the spirit of God is 
in kind the same with that of man, though differing from it infinitely in 
degree, and that, as material substance is mere illusion, there exists in this 
universe only one generic spiritual substance, the sole primary cause, 
efficient, substantial, and formal of all secondary causes and appearances 
whatever.t But I must at once confess that I am surprised how two 
opinions could ever have been entertained on this subject. For the work 
on the Védanta system which is universally admitted to be of the highest 
authority, is the Commentary of Sancara AcHArya on the Swétras of 
* Sir Wixtx1aMm Jonzs’s Works, vol. I. p. 165. 
+ Ueber die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier, pp. 147, 148. 
{ Sir Wixxt1aM Jonzs’s Works, vol. I. p. 173.—It will be observed, that these remarks are 
somewhat inconsistent with those contained in the preceding quotation ; in which Sir W1LL1AM 
Jones more correctly represented the energy of the Supreme Being as the efficient cause of all 
secondary causes and appearances. 
