/S/a@nkara as well as of Râmânuja are based.

But at the same time we have seen that, in a not inconsiderable number
of cases, the interpretations of /S/a@nkara and Râmânuja diverge more or
less widely, and that the Sûtras affected thereby are, most of them,
especially important because bearing on fundamental points of the
Vedânta system. The question then remains which of the two
interpretations is entitled to preference.

Regarding a small number of Sûtras I have already (in the conspectus of
contents) given it as my opinion that Râmânuja's explanation appears to
be more worthy of consideration. We meet, in the first place, with a
number of cases in which the two commentators agree as to the literal
meaning of a Sûtra, but where /S/a@nkara sees himself reduced to the
necessity of supplementing his interpretation by certain additions and
reservations of his own for which the text gives no occasion, while
Râmânuja is able to take the Sûtra as it stands. To exemplify this
remark, I again direct attention to all those Sûtras which in clear
terms represent the individual soul as something different from the
highest soul, and concerning which /S/a@nkara is each time obliged to
have recourse to the plea of the Sûtra referring, not to what is true in
the strict sense of the word, but only to what is conventionally looked
upon as true. It is, I admit, not altogether impossible that
/S/a@nkara's interpretation should represent the real meaning of the
Sûtras; that the latter, indeed, to use the terms employed by Dr.
Deussen, should for the nonce set forth an exoteric doctrine adapted to
the common notions of mankind, which, however, can be rightly understood
by him only to whose mind the esoteric doctrine is all the while
present. This is not impossible, I say; but it is a point which requires
convincing proofs before it can be allowed.--We have had, in the second