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INTRODUCTION.
Ixxvi
sarveshu lokeshu kshattrasyaiva prasasanam abbat, by 'que le kshatriya seul l'a enseignée dans tous les mondes.' For when he proposes in the 'Errata' to translate instead, c'est pourquoi l'empire dans tous les mondes fut attribué au kshatriya seulement,' he forgets that such an idea is foreign to the ordinary atmosphere in which the Upanishads move. It is not on account of the philosophical knowledge possessed by a few Kshatriyas, such as Ganaka or Pravahana, that the privilege of government belongs everywhere to the second class. That rests on a totally different basis. Such exceptional knowledge, as is displayed by a few kings, might be an excuse for their claiming the privileges belonging to the Brahmans, but it would never, in the eyes of the ancient Indian Åryas, be considered as an argument for their claiming kingly power. Therefore, although I am well aware that prasås is most frequently used in the sense of ruling, I have no doubt that Sankara likewise was fully aware of that, and that if he nevertheless explained prasásana here in the sense of prasastritvam sishyânâm, he did so because this meaning too was admissible, particularly here, where we may actually translate it by proclaiming, while the other meaning, that of ruling, would simply be impossible in the concatenation of ideas, which is placed before us in the Upanishad.
It seems, no doubt, extremely strange that neither the last redactors of the text of the Upanishads, nor the commentators, who probably knew the principal Upanishads by heart, should have perceived how certain passages in one Upanishad represented the same or nearly the same text which is found in another Upanishad, only occasionally with the most palpable corruptions.
Thus when the ceremony of offering a mantha or mash is described, we read in the Khandogya-upanishad V, 2, 6, that it is to be accompanied by certain words which on the whole are intelligible. But when the same passage occurs again in the Brihad-åranyaka, those words have been changed to such a degree, and in two different ways in the two Sakhâs of the Madhyandinas and Kanvas, that, though the commentator explains them, they are almost unintel
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| SR No. | 007670 |
| Book Title | Upnishad |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | Max Muller |
| Publisher | Oxford |
| Publication Year | 1879 |
| Total Pages | 1835 |
| Language | English |
| Classification | Book_English |
| File Size | 35 MB |