Brahma Sutra
The Brahma Sutra , also known as the Vedanta Sutra , is one of the scriptures of the Orthodox Brahmanic tradition in Hinduism .
In order to be able to grasp the relevant scriptures from the Upanishads , the Bhagavad Gita and other holy scriptures and to be able to bring them into a systematic, philosophical context, a guide in strict verse form ( Sutra ) was created. He combined the scattered individual utterances of the texts into a system. Such a guide is found in the Brahma Sutras, which the sage Badarayana is believed to have written . Indian tradition identifies him with Vyasa , the mythical writer of the epic Mahabharata . The time when the Brahma Sutra was written is unclear. Since the work already criticizes the teachings of late Buddhist systems, it cannot have been written in its current form before the first centuries after the beginning of our era. There may have been older literature that has not been preserved.
shape
The Brahma Sutra consists of 555 aphorisms , which are arranged in four chapters of four sections each.
The aphorisms mostly consist of a few words that remain completely incomprehensible without a comment or a teacher. Obviously it was the intention of the author to give the student of Secret Doctrine a memory aid with key words. For this reason, the true teaching of Badarayana and the meaning of the individual sutras was already unclear in ancient times in India and various commentaries have been written on the enigmatic yet highly regarded work.
content
The Brahma Sutra gives the views of a large number of Masters who have very different points of view on important points. It seems that various theories have existed about the relationship between the individual soul and the universal spirit and that Badarayana attempted to define a doctrine that included the following key points:
- The Brahman is the material and efficient cause of all that exists.
- Brahman is the source of all individual souls.
- The “redeemed” individual soul lives forever as an individual spirit being.
The view that Brahman is the material cause of the world is changed in later commentaries to the fact that all multiplicity is a sham manifestation of an otherwise unchangeable being. This idea of the "non-duality", Advaita , was first mentioned by the philosopher Gaudapada and his disciple Govinda .
An excellent representative of this doctrine is one of the most important philosophers of Hinduism, Shankara (probably 788-820), a student of Govinda . In his system of Advaita Vedanta (non-duality) he starts from an all-one spirit, which appears as a multitude as a result of the “magical power” of Maya . In his great commentary on the Brahma Sutra, Shankara tries to interpret all passages in this sense. This theory of Shankara of the absolute non-duality or "maya-vada" (doctrine of the world illusion) exerted a great influence on the development of Indian philosophy up to the present day.
Web links
swell
- Helmuth von Glasenapp : The philosophy of the Indians . An introduction to their history and teachings. Kröner, Stuttgart 1949, p. 181-186 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Helmuth v. Glasenapp: The Philosophy of the Indians (p. 181)