seen in the conspectus) gives a
different explanation of the term 'maya,' but in judging of /S/a@nkara's
views we may for the time accept /S/a@nkara's own interpretation. Now,
from the latter it clearly follows that if the objects seen in dreams
are to be called Maya, i.e. illusion, because not evincing the
characteristics of reality, the objective world surrounding the waking
soul must not be called Maya. But that the world perceived by waking men
is Maya, even in a higher sense than the world presented to the dreaming
consciousness, is an undoubted tenet of the /S/a@nkara Vedanta; and the
Sutra therefore proves either that Badaraya/n/a did not hold the
doctrine of the illusory character of the world, or else that, if after
all he did hold that doctrine, he used the term 'maya' in a sense
altogether different from that in which /S/a@nkara employs it.--If, on
the other hand, we, with Ramanuja, understand the word 'maya' to denote
a wonderful thing, the Sutra of course has no bearing whatever on the
doctrine of Maya in its later technical sense.

We now turn to the question as to the relation of the individual soul to
Brahman. Do the Sutras indicate anywhere that their author held
/S/a@nkara's doctrine, according to which the jiva is in reality
identical with Brahman, and separated from it, as it were, only by a
false surmise due to avidya, or do they rather favour the view that the
souls, although they have sprung from Brahman, and constitute elements
of its nature, yet enjoy a kind of individual existence apart from it?
This question is in fact only another aspect of the Maya question, but
yet requires a short separate treatment.

In the conspectus I have given it as my opinion that the Sutras in which
the size of the individual soul is discussed can hardly be understood in
/S/a@nkara's sense, and rather seem to favour the opinion, held among
others by Ramanuja, that the soul is of minute size. We have further
seen that Sutra 18 of the third pada of the second adhyaya, which
describes the soul as 'j/n/a,' is more appropriately understood in the
sense assigned to it by Ramanuja; and, again, that the Sutras which
treat of the soul being an agent, can be reconciled with /S/a@nkara's
views only if supplemented in a way which their text does not appear to
authorise.--We next have the important Sutra II, 3, 43 in which the soul
is distinctly said to be a part (a/ms/a) of Brahman, and which, as we
have already noticed, can