THE Doctrine of Maya - HolyBooks.com

""""""""24 THE DOCTRINE OF MAYAMiiller 1 seems to be incorrect when he says thatthe word need not mean more than a dream." Inthat case the sutra would mean that the dreamworld is a dream, which hardly has any sense.Doubtless the word means illusion here, as itis quite in keeping with the spirit of the precedingtwo sutras, which also bear on the same subject ofthe unreality of the dream-world.The most important, authoritative and popular,as well as the oldest, commentary on the Vedanta-Sutras is the one by Sankara (otherwise calledSankaracarya) called the Sariraka-Bhasya." ThisBhasya has so much been respected that it forms apart and parcel of the technical system of theVedanta together with the Sutras. Of the intrinsicmerit of Sankara s commentary or of its relation tothe Brahma-Sutras we shall have occasion to speaklater on. Suffice it to say here that the term mayais found in the commentary fifteen times in thefollowing passages, 2 and itinvariably has the senseofillusion."i.yatha maydvinas carma-khadgadharat sutrenaakasam adhirohatah sa eva mdydvi paramartharupo3bhumistho nyah" (On i. i. 17.)1 Max Miiller, The Six Systems of Indian Philosophy,Longmans, 1899, p. 243.2 We have selected here the more typical and importantpassages. No doubt there are some others too, some ofthese having been quoted in ch. ii.3Sankara s Comm. on 1. i. 17. p. 120, 1. 16 of theVedanta-Sutras, Bibl. Ind., Cal., 1863.