Commentary on the Brahma Sutras

Introduction

The Brahma Sutras, attributed to Badarayana, condense the teaching of the Upanishads into roughly 550 aphorisms in four chapters, so terse that they can hardly be read without a commentary. Shankara’s is the oldest commentary on them that survives in full. Its introduction explains ignorance as “superimposition” (adhyasa): the self and what is not the self are confused, as when a rope is taken for a snake. The second chapter refutes rival schools, among them Samkhya, the atomism of Vaisheshika, the Buddhist schools and the Jains. Sub-commentaries such as Vachaspati Mishra’s “Bhamati” built on it, and it became the reference text of Advaita Vedanta.

Connections

Builds on

• Brihadaranyaka Upanishadc. 700 BCE · Yajnavalkya

Criticizes

• Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way (Mulamadhyamakakarika)c. 200 · Nagarjuna
• Twenty Verses (Vimsatika)c. 380 · Vasubandhu

Taken up in

• An Idealist View of Life1932 · Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan

Criticized in

• Shri Bhashyac. 1100 · Ramanuja
• Brahma Sutra Bhashyac. 1285 · Madhvacharya
• The Life Divine1940 · Sri Aurobindo