Brahmasutra Bhashya

A commentary (bhashya) written by the
philosopher Shankaracharya on
Badarayana’s Brahma Sutras, a collection of 555 brief aphorisms (sutras) that
form the basis for the philosophical
school known as Vedanta. This commentary is the defining text for the
Advaita Vedanta school of Indian philosophy. Shankaracharya begins his
investigation by establishing the Self as
the basis of all knowledge, since the one
thing that can never be doubted is the
reality of the one who knows. He identifies this knowing consciousness as the
eternal Self, or atman, which never
changes over time despite the vicissitudes of the physical bodies it inhabits.
According to Shankaracharya, the perceivable world is clearly subject to
change and thus is not the Absolute
Reality, which the philosopher identifies as the unqualified, unchanging
Brahman. Following the Upanishads,
Shankaracharya identifies atman as
identical to Brahman. He states that for
human beings the reason for both
unhappiness and the bondage of the
soul is the ignorance of this relationship,
which causes one to mistake this perceivable reality for the Ultimate Reality.
With the destruction of this mistaken
understanding, all bonds are broken,
and the person attains final liberation.