tradition than to their desire of forcing Bâdarâya/n/a's Sûtras to bear
testimony to the truth of their own philosophic theories.

With special reference to the Mâyâ doctrine one important Sûtra has yet
to be considered, the only one in which the term 'mâyâ' itself occurs,
viz. III, 2, 3. According to /S/a@nkara the Sûtra signifies that the
environments of the dreaming soul are not real but mere Mâyâ, i.e.
unsubstantial illusion, because they do not fully manifest the character
of real objects. Râmânuja (as we have seen in the conspectus) gives a
different explanation of the term 'mâyâ,' but in judging of /S/a@nkara's
views we may for the time accept /S/a@nkara's own interpretation. Now,
from the latter it clearly follows that if the objects seen in dreams
are to be called Mâyâ, i.e. illusion, because not evincing the
characteristics of reality, the objective world surrounding the waking
soul must not be called Mâyâ. But that the world perceived by waking men
is Mâyâ, even in a higher sense than the world presented to the dreaming
consciousness, is an undoubted tenet of the /S/â@nkara Vedânta; and the
Sûtra therefore proves either that Bâdarâya/n/a did not hold the
doctrine of the illusory character of the world, or else that, if after
all he did hold that doctrine, he used the term 'mâyâ' in a sense
altogether different from that in which /S/a@nkara employs it.--If, on
the other hand, we, with Râmânuja, understand the word 'mâyâ' to denote
a wonderful thing, the Sûtra of course has no bearing whatever on the
doctrine of Mâyâ in its later technical sense.

We now turn to the question as to the relation of the individual soul to
Brahman. Do the Sûtras indicate anywhere that their author held
/S/a@nkara's doctrine, according to which the jîva is in reality
identical with Brahman, and separated from it, as it were, only by a
false surmise due to avidyâ, or do they rather favour the view that the