Zend Avesta Part 03

SR No.: 007673
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: L H Mills
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1887
Total Pages: 2618
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 49 MB

Page 1872

142
VEDÂNTA-SOTRAS.
hand, a passage met with later on (From him comes Agni, the sun being his fuel,' up to 'All herbs and juices') expresses itself to the same purpose. How then should all at once, in the midst of these two passages (which refer to the creation), a statement be made about the nature of the source of all beings?—The attribute of being the Self of all beings (which above was said to be mentioned in the passage about the creation, 'Fire is his head,' &c., is not mentioned there but) is stated only later on in a passage subsequent to that which refers to the creation, viz. 'The Person is all this, sacrifice,' &c. (II, 1, 10).–Now, we see that sruti as well as smriti speaks of the birth of Pragâpati, whose body is this threefold world; compare Rig-veda Samh. X, 121, 1, 'Hiranyagarbha arose in the beginning; he was the one born Lord of things existing. He established the earth and this sky; to what God shall we offer our oblation?' where the expression 'arose' means 'he was born. And in smriti we read, He is the first embodied one, he is called the Person; as the primal creator of the beings Brahman was evolved in the beginning. This Person which is (not the original Brahman but) an effect (like other created beings) may be called the internal Self of all beings (as it is called in II, 1, 4), because in the form of the Self of breath it abides in the Selfs of all beings. On this latter explanation (according to which the passage, Fire is his head,' &c., does not describe the nature of the highest Lord, and can therefore not be referred to in the Satra) the declaration as to the Lord being the nature' of all which is contained in the passage, 'The Person is all this, sacrifice,' &c., must be taken as the reason for establishing the highest Lord, (i. e. as the passage which, according to the Sætra, proves that the source of all beings is the highest Lord.)
The question is to what passage the rûpopanyâsât' of the Sätra refers.-According to the opinion set forth first it refers to Mu. Up. II, 1, 4 ff.—But, according to the second view, II, 1, 4 to II, 1, 9, cannot refer to the source of all beings, i. e. the highest Self, because that entire passage describes the creation, the inner Self of which is not the highest Self but Pragâpati, i.e. the Hiranyagarbha or Satrâtman of the later Vedanta, who is himself an
Digitized by
Digized by Google