pts
of a certain set of Indian commentators to explain it as setting forth
pure Vedanta, i.e. the pure doctrine of the Upanishads, may simply be
set aside. But this same Bhagavadgita is quoted in Badaraya/n/a's Sutras
(at least according to the unanimous explanations of the most eminent
scholiasts of different schools) as inferior to /S/ruti only in
authority. The Sutras, moreover, refer in different places to certain
Vedantic portions of the Mahabharata, especially the twelfth book,
several of which represent forms of Vedanta distinctly differing from
/S/a@nkara's teaching, and closely related to the system of the
Bhagavatas.

Facts of this nature--from entering into the details of which we are
prevented by want of space--tend to mitigate the prima facie strangeness
of the assumption that the Vedanta-sutras, which occupy an intermediate
position between the Upanishads and /S/a@nkara, should yet diverge in
their teaching from both. The Vedanta of Gau/d/apada and /S/a@nkara
would in that case mark a strictly orthodox reaction against all
combinations of non-Vedic elements of belief and doctrine with the
teaching of the Upanishads. But although this form of doctrine has ever
since /S/a@nkara's time been the one most generally accepted by
Brahminic students of philosophy, it has never had any wide-reaching
influence on the masses of India. It is too little in sympathy with the
wants of the human heart, which, after all, are not so very different in
India from what they are elsewhere. Comparatively few, even in India,
are those who rejoice in the idea of a universal non-personal essence in
which their own individuality is to be merged and lost for ever, who
think it sweet 'to be wrecked on the ocean of the Infinite.'[31] The
only forms of Vedantic philosophy which are--and can at any time have
been--really popular, are those in which the Brahman of the Upanishads
has somehow transformed itself into a being, between which and the
devotee there can exist a personal relation, love and faith on the part
of man, justice tempered by mercy on the part of the divinity. The only
religious books of widespread influence are such as the Ramayan of
Tulsidas, which lay no stress on the distinction between an absolute
Brahman inaccessible to all human wants and sympathies, and a shadowy
Lord whose very conception depends on the illusory principle of Maya,
but love to dwell on the delights of devotion to one all-wise and
merciful ruler, w