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The Residents of Väränäsi Become Vaisnavas
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literature that establishes the supremacy of the Personality of Godhead. In various ways, Śāṅkarācārya has tried to refute Vedic literature. Throughout the world, ninety-nine percent of the philosophers following in the footsteps of Śāṅkarācārya refuse to accept the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Instead they try to establish their own opinions. It is typical of mundane philosophers to want to establish their own opinions and refute those of others. Therefore: (1) The Mīmāṁsaka philosophers, following the principles of Jaimini, stress fruitive activity and say that if there is a God, He must be under the laws of fruitive activity. In other words, if one performs his duties very nicely in the material world, God is obliged to give one the desired result. According to these philosophers, there is no need to become a devotee of God. If one strictly follows moral principles, one will be recognized by the Lord, who will give the desired reward. Such philosophers do not accept the Vedic principle of  bhakti-yoga . Instead, they give stress to following one's prescribed duty. (2) Atheistic Sāṅkhya philosophers like Kapila analyze the material elements very scrutinizingly and thereby come to the conclusion that material nature is the cause of everything. They do not accept the Supreme Personality of Godhead as the cause of all causes. (3) Nyāya philosophers like Gautama and Kaṇāda have accepted a combination of atoms as the original cause of the creation. (4) Māyāvādī philosophers say that everything is an illusion. Headed by philosophers like Aṣṭāvakra, they stress the impersonal Brahman effulgence as the cause of everything. (5) Philosophers following the precepts of Patañjali practice  rāja-yoga . They imagine a form of the Absolute Truth within many forms. That is their process of self-realization.
All five of these philosophies completely reject the predominance of the Supreme Personality of Godhead and strive to establish their own philosophical theories. However, Śrīla Vyāsadeva wrote the  Vedānta-sūtra  and, taking the essence of all Vedic literature, established the supremacy of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. All five of the philosophers mentioned above understand that impersonal Brahman is without material qualities, and they believe that when the Personality of Godhead appears, He is contaminated and covered by the material qualities. The technical term used is  saguṇa . They say, “ saguṇa  Brahman” and “ nirguṇa  Brahman.”  Nirguṇa  Brahman means impersonal, and  saguṇa  Brahman means “accepting material contamination.” More or less, this kind of philosophical speculation is called Māyāvāda philosophy. The fact is, however, that the Absolute Truth has nothing to do with material qualities because He is transcendental. He is always complete with full spiritual qualities. The five philosophers mentioned above do not accept Lord Viṣṇu as the Supreme Personality of Godhead, but they are very busy refuting the philosophy of other schools. There are six kinds of philosophical processes in India. Because Vyāsadeva is the Vedic authority, he is known as Vedavyāsa. His philosophical explanation of the  Vedānta-sūtra  is accepted by the devotees. As Kṛṣṇa confirms in  Bhagavad-gītā  (15.15):