us for performing this or
that action. They held that if the Upani@sads spoke of Brahman
and demonstrated the nature of its pure essence, these were mere
exaggerations intended to put the commandment of performing
some kind of worship of Brahman into a more attractive form.
S'a@nkara could not deny that the purport of the Vedas as found
in the Brahma@nas was explicitly of a mandatory nature as declared
by the Mima@msa, but he sought to prove that such could
not be the purport of the Upani@sads, which spoke of the truest
and the highest knowledge of the Absolute by which the wise
could attain salvation. He said that in the karmak@n@da--the
(sacrificial injunctions) Brahma@nas of the Vedas--the purport of
the Vedas was certainly of a mandatory nature, as it was intended
for ordinary people who were anxious for this or that pleasure,

431

and were never actuated by any desire of knowing the absolute
truth, but the Upani@sads, which were intended for the wise who
had controlled their senses and become disinclined to all earthly
joys, demonstrated the one Absolute, Unchangeable, Brahman
as the only Truth of the universe. The two parts of the Vedas
were intended for two classes of persons. S'a@nkara thus did not
begin by formulating a philosophy of his own by logical and
psychological analysis, induction, and deduction. He tried to show
by textual comparison of the different Upani@sads, and by reference
to the content of passages in the Upani@sads, that they
were concerned in demonstrating the nature of Brahman (as he
understood it) as their ultimate end. He had thus to show that
the uncontradicted testimony of all the Upani@sads was in favour
of the view which he held. He had to explain all doubtful and
apparently conflicting texts, and also to show that none of the
texts referred to the doctrines of mahat, prak@rti, etc. of the
Sa@mkhya. He had also to interpret the few scattered ideas
about physics, cosmology, eschatology, etc. that are found in the
Upani@sads consistently with the Brahman philosophy. In order
to show that the philosophy of the Upani@sads as he expounded it
was a consistent system, he had to remove all the objections that
his opponents could make regarding the Brahman philosophy, to
criticize the philosophies of all other schools, to prove them to
be self-contradictory, and to show that any interpretation of the
Upani@sads, other than that which he gave, was inconsistent and
wrong. This he did not on