Adhikarana 3

The Supreme Personality of Godhead May be Understood by the Revelation of the Vedic Scriptures

Visaya (Statement): The Supreme Personality of Godhead is the creator, maintainer and destroyer of

the material universes. Because He is inconceivable to the tiny brains of the conditioned souls He must

be understood by the revelation of Vedanta philosophy. This is confirmed by the following statements

of the Upanisads:

sac-cid-ananda-rupaya

krsnayaklista-karine namo vedanta-vedyaya

gurave buddhi-saksine

Om namah. I offer my respectful obeisances to Sri Krsna, whose form is eternal and full of knowledge

and bliss, who is the rescuer from distress, who is understood by Vedanta, who is the supreme spiritual

master, and who is the witness in everyone's heart.

- Gopala-tapani Upanisad

tam tv aupanisadam purusam prcchami

"I shall now inquire about the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is revealed in the Upanisads."

- Brhad-aranyaka Upanisad 3.9.26

Samsaya (doubt): What is the best method for understanding supremely worshipable Lord

Hari: the mental speculation of the logicians, or the revelation of the Vedanta scriptures?

Purvapaksa (the argument of the philosophical opposition): The sage Gautama (Brhad-aranyaka

Upanisad 4.5) and others maintain that the Supreme Personality of Godhead can be understood by the

speculations of the logicians.

Siddhanta (the conclusion): In the Vedanta-sutra, Srila Vyasadeva explains that scriptural revelation

is the real way to understand the Supreme Brahman. He says:

Sutra 3

sastra-yonitvat

sastra - the scriptures; yonitvat - because of being the origin of knowledge.

(The speculations of the logicians are unable to teach us about Supreme Personality of

Godhead) because He may only be known by the revelation of the Vedic scriptures.

Purport by Srila Baladeva Vidyabhusana

In this sutra the word "not" should be understood, even though it is not expressed. They who aspire

after liberation are not able to understand the Personality of Godhead simply by logic and speculation.

Why? Because He is known only by the revelation of the Vedic scriptures. Among the Vedic scriptures,

the Upanisads especially describe the Supreme Person. For this reason it is said aupanisadam purusam

(the Supreme Person is undertood through the revelation of the Upanisads). The process of logic and

speculation as described by the word mantavya (to be understood by logic) as described in Brhad-

aranyaka Upanisad (4.5) should be employed to understand the revelation of the scriptures and not

independently. This is confirmed by the following statement of sruti-sastra:

purvapara-virodhena

ko 'rtho 'trabhimato bhavet ity adyam uhanam tarkah

suska-tarkam vivarjayet

"Logic is properly employed to resove apparent contradictions in the texts of the Vedas. Dry logic,

without reference to scriptural revelation, should be abandoned."

For this reason the dry logic of Gautama and others should be rejected. This is also confired in

sutra 2.1.11. After understanding the Supreme Person by study of the Upanisads, one should become

rapt in meditation on Him. This will be explained later insutra 2.1.27.

The Supreme Lord, Hari, is identical with His own transcendental form. He and His form are not two

separate identities. He is the witness of all living entities, He is the resting place of a host of

transcendental qualitities, He is the creator of the material universes, and He remains unchanged

eternally. By hearing about His transcendental glories, one may worship Him perfectly.

At this point someone may raise the following objection: The Vedanta philosophy does not give either

positive orders or negative prohibitions, but simply descriptions, as the sentence "On the earth there are

seven continents." Men need instruction in how to act. Therefore, what is needed is a series of orders to

guide men. Men need orders, such as the ordinary orders. "A man desiring wealth should approach the

king," or "One suffering from indigestion should restrict his intake of water," or the orders of the

Vedas: svarga-kamo yajeta (One desiring to enter the celestial material planets should worship the

demigods), or suram na pibet (No one should drink wine). The Upanisads do not give us a string of

orders and prohibitions, but merely a description of the eternally perfect Brahman. for example the

Upanisads tell us satyam jnanam (The Supreme Personality of Godhead is truth and knowledge). This

is of small help in the matter of orders and prohibitions. Sometimes the Upanisads' descriptions may be

a little useful, as for example when they describe a certain demigod, the description may be useful

when one performs a sacrifice to that demigod, but otherwise these descriptions afford us little practical

beneifit, and are more or less useless. This is confirmed by the following statements of Jaimini Muni.

amnayasya kriyarthatvad anarthakhyam atad-arthanam

"The scriptures teach us pious duties. Any scriptural passage that does not teach us our duty is a

senseless waste of our time."

- Purva-mimamsa 1.2.1

tad-bhutanam kriyarthena samamnayo 'rthasya tan-nimittatvat

"Just as a verb gives meaning to a sentence, in the same way instructions for action give meaning to the

statements of the scriptures."

- Purva-mimamsa 1.1.25

To this objection I reply: Do not be bewildered. Even though the Upanisads do not give us a

series of orders and prohibitions, still they teach us about the Supreme Brahman, the most important

and valuable object to be attained by any living entitiy. Just as if in your house there were hidden

treasure, and a description of its location were spoken to you, those words would not be useless simply

because they were a description. In the same way the Upanisads' description of the Supreme

Personality of Godhead, who is the greatest treasure to be attained by any living being, whose form is

eternal, full of knowledge and full of bliss, who is perfect and beyond any criticism, who is the friend of

all living entities, the Supreme Lord who is so kind that He gives Himself to His devotees, and the

supreme whole of all existance, of whom I am a tiny part, is not useless, but of great value to the

conditioned soul. The descriptions of the Supreme Brahman in the Upanisads are valuable, just as the

description "your son is now born" is useful and a source of great joy, and the decription "This is not a

snake, but only a rope partly seen in the darkness," is also useful and a great relief from fear.

The specific benefit attained by understanding the Supreme Brahman are described in the following

statement of Taittiriya Upanisad (2.1):

satyam jnanam anantam brahma yo veda nihitam guhayam so 'snute sarvan kaman

"The Supreme Personality of Godhead is limitless. He is transcendental knowledge, and He is the

eternal transcendental reality. He is present in everyone's heart. One who properly understands Him

becomes blessed and all his desires are completely fulfilled."

No one can say that the Upanisads teach about ordinary fruitive action (karma). Rather, one

may say that the Upanisads teach one to give up all material, fruitive work. No one can say that the

Upanisads describe anything other than the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is the original

creator, maintainer, and destroyer of all the universes, whose spiritual form is eternal, who is a great

ocean of unlimited auspicious transcendental qualitities, and who is the resting-place of the goddess of

fortune. Jaimini's description of the importance of karma, therefore, has no bearing on the Upanisads.

In fact Jaimini was a faithful devotee of the Lord, and his apparent criticisms (in the two quotations

presented above) of the Vedic texts that do not encourage fruitive work (karma) with sufficient

enthusiasm, are his hint to us that there is more that pious fruitive work in the instructions of the Vedas.

In this way it may be understood that the Supreme Brahman is the subject-matter described in the Vedic

scriptures.

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Adhikarana 4