darśana and incorporated it among their theories, if they really believed it to be the truth. He has answered it by saying that the sponsors and followers of Sāṅkya and Yoga have not done so only as a concession to the incapacity of the human mind to comprehend great truths directly, a concession to novices in philosophy, who may be staggered at first by the idea of the unreality of the world, and mistake it for an illogical proposition.
Mādhavācārya then proceeds on to say that it is not only the doctrine of the falsity of the world that has the tacit approval of Patañjali, but also the central doctrine of the Upaniṣads, namely the unity of the Soul. It is true that the Yogadarśana has, following the Sāṅkyas, postulated the plurality of Souls and recognised the distinction between Jiva and Iśvara. But in Mādhavācārya's view, this is also a concession to human frailty, and he has explained how otherwise, it would be difficult to comprehend the same.
Reverting to the subject of Patañjali's tacit approval of the falsity of the world in the sūtra cited above, it may be argued, that the word naṣṭain thesūtra should be interpreted , as some commentators have done, in the sense of 'invisible', and not in the sense of 'non-existent' as has been suggested. Such an interpretation would be quite valid in view of the fact that the dhātupāṭha (नश अदर्शने) advocates only the former sense. Interpreted thus, the sūtrawill not imply simultaneous existence and non-existence, but only simultaneous visibility and invisibility, from which the falsity of the world cannot be deduced as a corollary, as it is not incompatible with reality. In answer to this, it has to be pointed out, that, even conceding such an interpretation, the falsity of the world from the point of view of the mukta, implies non-existence for him, and thus simultaneous exietence and non-existence will again follow as an inevitable corollary leading ultimately to the falsity of the world.
So much for Patañjali's attitude to Vedānta as revealed in his Yogasūtra. Likewise his Mahābhāṣya also bears testimony to his approval of Upaniṣadic advaita. While explaining the vārtika सर्वस्य वा चेतनावत्वात् under Pāṇiṇi's sūtra धातोः कर्मणः समानकर्तृकादिच्छायां वा ( III-i-1) we have, this interesting
