it certainly is as improbable that the Sûtras should open with a
definition of that inferior principle, from whose cognition there can
accrue no permanent benefit, as, according to a remark made above, it is
unlikely that they should conclude with a description of the state of
those who know the lower Brahman only, and thus are debarred from
obtaining true release. As soon, on the other hand, as we discard the
idea of a twofold Brahman and conceive Brahman as one only, as the
all-enfolding being which sometimes emits the world from its own
substance and sometimes again retracts it into itself, ever remaining
one in all its various manifestations--a conception which need not by
any means be modelled in all its details on the views of the
Râmânujas--the definition of Brahman given in the second Sûtra becomes
altogether unobjectionable.

We next enquire whether the impression left on the mind by the manner in
which Bâdarâya/n/a defines Brahman, viz. that he does not distinguish
between an absolute Brahman and a Brahman associated with Mâyâ, is
confirmed or weakened by any other parts of his work. The Sûtras being
throughout far from direct in their enunciations, we shall have to look
less to particular terms and turns of expression than to general lines
of reasoning. What in this connexion seems specially worthy of being
taken into account, is the style of argumentation employed by the
Sûtrakâra against the Sâ@nkhya doctrine, which maintains that the world
has originated, not from an intelligent being, but from the
non-intelligent pradhâna. The most important Sûtras relative to this
point are to be met with in the first pâda of the second adhyâya. Those
Sûtras are indeed almost unintelligible if taken by themselves, but the
unanimity of the commentators as to their meaning enables us to use them
as steps in our investigation. The sixth Sûtra of the pâda mentioned
replies to the Sâ@nkhya objection that the non-intelligent world cannot