1845.] Veddnla-Sara, or Essence of the Vedanta. 105 



will endeavour clearly to define. It is evident, that an adequate notion 

 of that origin can only be obtained from its productions, as the nature 

 of the cause is perceived by the nature of its effects, and this mode of 

 inference we may the more insist upon, as the inductive process is re- 

 commended by the system as one of the means, whereby to arrive at true 

 knowledge. Now the Vedantists hold, that unconsciousness causes the 

 emanation of five elements, ether (akasa,) air, fire, water and earth. 

 These elements, though subtile and imperceptible to the senses, have 

 material qualities, and are therefore themselves special kinds of matter. 

 To know their origin, we have then to divest them of their special 

 qualities, by which we arrive at the notion of matter in general 

 (separated from all differences of space and time,) and we must therefore 

 say, that unconsciousness and the general notion of matter are virtually 

 the same, a necessary inference, however, but one which the Vedan- 

 tists took care to avoid, because the vague notion of unconsciousness 

 suited admirably as a cloak to the radical error of their system. 



As it is here my object to place before the reader the most prominent 

 characteristics only of the system, I am not to enter into the various 

 emanations from unconsciousness, but will at once state the opinion, 

 which the Vedanta forms as to the highest form of knowledge, to which 

 the individual mind can aspire, and which in fact is a consequence, ne- 

 cessarily derived from the first principles of the system. When we have 

 perceived, that all the emanations of unconsciousness are unreal, when 

 we are able to distinguish in the universal as well as in the individual 

 soul, that which is real and eternal from the unreal and the transient, 

 then is our notion of Bramha firmly and adequately established, in the 

 knowledge, that the individual soul is the same with the eternal Bramha, 

 as the differences, which at first sight seemed to exist between them, 

 became gradually destroyed by the progress of reflection. But even 

 this adequate notion of Bramha, as an act of the mind, is included in 

 the emanations of unconsciousness, and it is therefore an unavoidable 

 inference, that this act also, when once arrived at, should be destroyed 

 as one, though the purest and highest, of the emanations of unconscious- 

 ness, when the individual soul, comprehending its reality, returns to 

 Bramha, with whom it is identical. 



The philosophy of the Vedanta, as explained in the Vedanta-Sara, 

 differs undoubtedly from the more ancient expositions of this doctrine, 



