ial performances
enjoined on the followers of some particular /s/akha were found
described with greater or smaller modifications in the books of other
/s/akhas also. But already at a very early period, at any rate long
before the composition of the Vedanta-sutras in their present form, the
Vedic theologians must have apprehended the truth that, in whatever
regards sacrificial acts, one /s/akha may indeed safely follow its own
texts, disregarding the texts of all other /s/akhas; that, however, all
texts which aim at throwing light on the nature of Brahman and the
relation to it of the human soul must somehow or other be combined into
one consistent systematical whole equally valid for the followers of all
Vedic schools. For, as we have had occasion to remark above, while acts
may be performed by different individuals in different ways, cognition
is defined by the nature of the object cognised, and hence can be one
only, unless it ceases to be true cognition. Hence the attempts, on the
one hand, of discarding by skilful interpretation all contradictions met
with in the sacred text, and, on the other hand, of showing what
sections of the different Upanishads have to be viewed as teaching the
same matter, and therefore must be combined in one meditation. The
latter is the special task of the present pada.

Adhik. I and II (1-4; 5) are concerned with the question whether those
vidyas, which are met with in identical or similar form in more than one
sacred text, are to be considered as constituting several vidyas, or one
vidya only. /S/a@nkara remarks that the question affects only those
vidyas whose object is the qualified Brahman; for the knowledge of the
non-qualified Brahman, which is of an absolutely uniform nature, can of
course be one only wherever it is set forth. But things lie differently
in those cases where the object of knowledge is the sagu/n/am brahma or
some outward manifestation of Brahman; for the qualities as well as
manifestations of Brahman are many. Anticipating the subject of a later
adhikara/n/a, we may take for an example the so-called /S/a/nd/ilyavidya
which is met with in Ch. Up. III, 14, again--in an abridged form--in
B/ri/. Up. V, 6, and, moreover, in the tenth book of the
/S/atapathabrahma/n/a (X, 6, 3). The three passages enjoin a meditation
on Brahman as possessing certain attributes, some of which are specified
in all the three texts (as, for instance, manomayatva, bharupatva),
while others ar