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Updated: June 29, 2025
The Sutras teach, on the whole, the doctrine that the enfranchised soul, being identical with Brahman, is inseparable from him just as a mode of substance is incapable of existing apart from the substance of which it is a mode.
They rest, respectively, upon the Kojiki and other ancient Japanese literature and the modern commentators; upon the Chinese classics edited and commented on by Confucius and upon Chu Hi and other mediaeval scholastics who commented upon Confucius; and upon the shastras and sutras with which Gautama, the Buddha, had something to do.
But in other Sutras in this book the opposite view is stated and defended, according to which the vidvan, or knower, goes direct to the highest Brahman without halting anywhere short of that god.
They are attained according to the Yoga Sûtras by the exercise of saṃyama which is the name given conjointly to the three states of dhâraṇâ, dhyâna and samâdhi when they are applied simultaneously or in immediate succession to one object of thought . The reader will remember that this state of contemplation is to be preceded by pratyâhâra, or direction of the senses inwards, in which ordinary external stimuli are not felt.
Having, so far, elucidated the nature of meditation, the Sutras now begin to consider the result of meditation. Scripture declares that on the knowledge of Brahman being attained a man's later and earlier sins do not cling to him but pass away. Up. Up. Up. Up. The doubt here arises whether this non-clinging and destruction of all sins is possible as the result of mere meditation, or not.
They are classed as sutras, being described as discourses delivered by the Buddha on the Vulture Peak. At least ten are known, besides excerpts which are sometimes described as substantive works. The great collection translated into Chinese by Hsüan Chuang is said to consist of 200,000 verses and to comprise sixteen different sutras.
We know that the Pali recension which we possess was not the only one, for fragments of a Sanskrit version have been discovered. There was probably a large floating literature of sutras, often presenting several recensions of the same document worked up in different ways.
Perhaps the fables and parables which form the basis of the fourth book of the Sâṅkhya Sûtras point to some more popular form of instruction similar to the discourses of the Buddha. We may suppose that this ancient un-Brahmanic school took shape in several sects, especially Jainism and Buddhism, and used the Yoga discipline.
And the general result of the discussion carried on in connexion with the last two Sutras thus is that the words 'ether' and 'breath' denote something other than what is ordinarily denoted by those terms, viz. the highest Brahman, the sole cause of this entire world, free from all evil, &c. &c. Here terminates the adhikarana of 'breath.
That is to say, the form of Vishnuism which Râmânuja made one of the principal religions of India claims to be the teaching of the Upanishads, although he also affiliates himself to the Bhâgavatas. He interprets the part of the Vedânta Sûtras which treats of this sect as meaning that the author states and ultimately disallows the objections raised to their teaching and he definitely approves it.
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