RECENT PROGRESS OF SANSKRIT STUDIES. 279 



The Vedanta is regarded as the most conformable to the Veda, and conse- 

 quently as the most orthodox, of all the five systems which I have described. 

 There can be no doubt that these schools are, in many respects, antagonistic to 

 one another ; and that in ancient times the founders and adherents of. the other 

 systems maintained as exclusively true the principles which their own specula- 

 tion had led them to embrace, without any deference to the Vedanta, as more 

 authoritative. All the systems profess to be founded on, or at least consistent 

 with, the Veda, the supreme authority of which, as I have already stated, they 

 recognise and enforce by different arguments. It is evident, however, that some 

 of them, such as the Sankhya and Nyaya, are founded far more on speculation 

 than on any data supplied by the Veda ; and that though their adherents could 

 no doubt find some passages of the latter which support their doctrine, the 

 Vedanta (while it has to explain away particular texts), is in general more con- 

 formable to the spirit of the later portions of the Hindu Scriptures, — I mean the 

 Upanishads. I say the " later portions," for the Vedanta (in common with all the 

 other schools, excepting only the Purva Mimansa) attaches very little importance 

 to the earlier and greater division of the Vedas, — including nearly the whole of the 

 hymns, and the ceremonial part of the Brahmanas, which, in its idea, do nothing 

 more than prepare the way for the knowledge of Brahma, the only object of study 

 which is of any real consequence. In assigning this subordinate rank to the 

 mythological and ritual portion of the Veda, the Vedanta only follows what we 

 have already seen to be the doctrine of the Upanishads themselves. 



Although, however, it is clecir that in ancient times the Vedanta did not enjoy 

 any greater authority than the other schools, it has now come to be recognised as 

 the highest expression of Indian orthodoxy, and the study of the other systems 

 is regarded as merely preparing the way for its full comprehension. This is 

 distinctly affirmed in the Prasthana-bheda, a native summary of Indian litera- 

 ture by Madhusudana Sarasvati, which at the same time defines as follows the 

 leading tenets of the several systems : — 



" The difference in principle between these various schools is, when briefly stated, threefold. The 

 first doctrine is that of a commencement of the world ; the second is that of an evolution (or, modifica- 



viz., that nothing exists but Brahma, or Deity— it no longer holds that he is transubstantiated into 

 the material world, for the objects of sense, it is maintained, have no real existence at all. The 

 outward world is only an illusion, just as when a rope (to use the Indian illustration), lying on the 

 ground, is by mistake taken for a serpent ; but this does not imply that the rope has been changed, 

 or has really become a serpent. In the same way, when it is said that the universe is Brahma, it 

 is not meant that he has really become the universe, but that he appears so. The existence which 

 the world appears to have is no real existence of its own, but the existence of Brahma attributed to 

 it. The name and the form which it has are derived from mdyd, or illusion. Brahma is the sub- 

 stratum of the illusion ; that is, he is not really the material cause of the world, as earth is of a 

 jar, but he is such a substratum as the rope is of the serpent, for which it is mistaken. As the 

 fancied existence of the serpent depends on the real existence of the rope, while the latter is not 

 actually changed into a serpent, so, too, the seeming existence of the finite universe depends on the 

 real existence of Brahma, though Brahma is not actually changed into the universe." 



