Brahma Sutras

01The thread through the Upanishads

A sutra is a thread. The old definition says it should have few syllables, leave no doubt, hold the essence and face every side. Badarayana's sutras thread together the sayings of the Upanishads, which are scattered across many shakhas of the Veda, and test them against one another until they speak with one voice. The book goes by several names: Vedanta Sutra, Shariraka Sutra (on the embodied Self), Uttara Mimamsa Sutra. That last name places it beside Jaimini's Purva Mimamsa. Jaimini inquires into dharma, the duty taught by the Veda's rites; Badarayana into Brahman, taught by its Upanishads.

02Now, the inquiry into Brahman

The first sutra has four words: athato brahma jijnasa. The second answers what Brahman is: that from which the birth, sustenance and dissolution of this world proceed. The third and fourth say Brahman is known from the Shastra, and that all the Upanishads point to it alone. Badarayana then walks through the Upanishadic passages one by one, settling what each means. Many sutras are only two or three words long. Without a teacher's bhashya they are close to unreadable, and that is by design.

03Sixteen padas, many adhikaranas

There are four adhyayas, each of four padas. The sutras within a pada are grouped into adhikaranas, each settling one question, often which Brahman a particular Upanishadic passage means. The first adhyaya takes the passages one by one: the bliss-made Self of the Taittiriya, the light beyond the heavens, the space, the breath, the person in the eye. Each, Badarayana shows, is Brahman. The count of sutras differs a little by reading: 555 for Adi Shankaracharya, slightly fewer for Ramanujacharya and slightly more for Madhvacharya, because the acharyas divide and join some sutras differently.

04Answering the other schools

Sankhya said the world came from unconscious Pradhana. Badarayana answers in sutra 1.1.5: no, because the Shruti says the cause "saw", and only a conscious being sees. The second adhyaya turns to objections at length. If Brahman needs nothing, why create? Sutra 2.1.33 replies, "lokavat tu lilakaivalyam": as in the world, it is simply lila, the way a king who lacks nothing still plays. If Brahman creates, is he cruel to give some joy and some pain? No, says the next sutra, because each being receives according to its karma. The second pada examines Vaisheshika atomism, the Buddhist schools, the Jain view, the Pashupata and the Pancharatra, one after another; the acharyas differ on whether the last is refuted or upheld.

05The vidyas and the path of light

The Upanishads teach many meditations, called vidyas: the Dahara Vidya on the small space in the lotus of the heart, the Shandilya Vidya, the Madhu Vidya, the Panchagni Vidya of the five fires. The third adhyaya asks which features of one vidya may be gathered from its telling in another shakha, and who is fit for each. The fourth adhyaya follows the knower at death. Speech merges into mind, mind into prana, prana into the jiva. The soul of the knower leaves by the nadi of the crown and travels the path of light, through the flame, the day, the bright fortnight, to Brahman, and the last sutra says twice that it does not return.

06The great bhashyas

Adi Shankaracharya's Brahma Sutra Bhashya is the foundation of Advaita; Vachaspati Mishra's Bhamati and Padmapada's Panchapadika comment on it. Ramanujacharya's Shri Bhashya founds Vishishtadvaita, and the Shri Vaishnava tradition says he wrote it after travelling to Kashmir to read the Bodhayana Vritti. Madhvacharya's Brahma Sutra Bhashya and Anuvyakhyana found Dvaita. Nimbarka, Vallabhacharya and Baladeva Vidyabhushana each wrote their own. One text, read by each acharya in the light of his own sampradaya.

07More bhashyas, more schools

The list did not stop with the three great acharyas. Bhaskara wrote a bhashya teaching difference-in-identity. Nimbarkacharya's Vedanta Parijata Saurabha founded the Dvaitadvaita of the Nimbarka sampradaya near Vrindavan. Vallabhacharya's Anubhashya, completed by his son Vitthalnath, grounds the Pushti Marg in Shuddhadvaita. Shrikantha read the sutras as teaching Shiva as Brahman, and Shripati's Shrikara Bhashya did so for the Veerashaiva tradition. In the eighteenth century Baladeva Vidyabhushana wrote the Govinda Bhashya for the Gaudiya Vaishnavas at Galta near Jaipur, so that Shri Chaitanya's followers too had their bhashya on the sutras.

08How it is studied

In the mathas the Brahma Sutras come last, after the student has the Upanishads and the Gita. At Sringeri, Kanchi and the Vaishnava mathas of Melukote and Udupi, scholars still debate adhikaranas, the topic-units of four to five steps each: the subject, the doubt, the opposing view, the settled view, and how it connects. Vidvat sabhas held on the anniversaries of the acharyas often take one adhikarana as their theme.

What it contains

1. 1
   Samanvaya Adhyaya समन्वयाध्यायः

   Samanvaya means harmony. The first adhyaya shows that all the Upanishads, read rightly, converge on Brahman as the one cause of the world. Its four padas take up passages with clear marks of Brahman, then those with unclear marks, and settle each.

2. 2
   Avirodha Adhyaya अविरोधाध्यायः

   Avirodha means non-contradiction. The first pada answers objections drawn from smriti and reasoning, and the second examines Sankhya, Vaisheshika, the Buddhist and Jain schools and the Pashupata. The last two padas settle apparent conflicts within the Shruti on creation, the elements, the jiva and the senses.

3. 3
   Sadhana Adhyaya साधनाध्यायः

   Sadhana means the means. The jiva's going and coming through births is described to awaken dispassion, then the states of waking, dream, deep sleep and swoon. The longest pada gathers the vidyas of the different shakhas, and the last weighs karma and knowledge as means to liberation.

4. 4
   Phala Adhyaya फलाध्यायः

   Phala means the fruit. It describes the effect of knowledge on past and future karma, the departure of the knower, the path of light and the nature of the freed soul. The book ends with the words "anavrittih shabdat", spoken twice: there is no return, so says the Shruti.

Famous verses

अथातो ब्रह्मजिज्ञासा

Now, therefore, the inquiry into Brahman.Brahma Sutra 1.1.1

जन्माद्यस्य यतः

Brahman is that from which the birth and the rest (sustenance and dissolution) of this world proceed.Brahma Sutra 1.1.2

शास्त्रयोनित्वात्

Because the Shastra is the source of knowing it (or: because Brahman is the source of the Shastra).Brahma Sutra 1.1.3

लोकवत्तु लीलाकैवल्यम्

But, as in the world, creation is mere lila, play.Brahma Sutra 2.1.33

अनावृत्तिः शब्दादनावृत्तिः शब्दात्

There is no return, on the word of the Shruti; there is no return, on the word of the Shruti.Brahma Sutra 4.4.22