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 1920

190
VEDÂNTA-SOTRAS.
is real. To the end of refuting all these speculators who obstruct the way to the complete intuition of the unity of the Self this sârîraka-sâstra has been set forth, whose aim it is to show that there is only one highest Lord ever unchanging, whose substance is cognition", and who, by means of Nescience, manifests himself in various ways, just as a thaumaturg appears in different shapes by means of his magical power. Besides that Lord there is no other substance of cognition.—If, now, the Satrakâra raises and refutes the doubt whether a certain passage which in reality) refers to the Lord does refer to the individual soul, as he does in this and the preceding Satras , he does so for the following purpose. To the highest Self which is eternally pure, intelligent and free, which is never changing, one only, not in contact with anything, devoid of form, the opposite characteristics of the individual soul are erroneously ascribed ; just as ignorant men ascribe blue colour to the colourless ether. In order to remove this erroneous opinion by means of Vedic passages tending either to prove the unity of the Self or to disprove the doctrine of duality
—which passages he strengthens by arguments-he insists on the difference of the highest Self from the individual soul, does however not mean to prove thereby that the soul is different from the highest Self, but, whenever speaking of the soul, refers to its distinction (from the Self) as forming an item of ordinary thought, due to the power of Nescience. For thus, he thinks, the Vedic injunctions of works which are given with a view to the states of acting and enjoying, natural (to the non-enlightened soul), are not stultified: That, however, the absolute unity of the Self is the real purport of the sâstra's teaching, the Satrakâra declares, for instance, in I, 1, 303. The refutation of the reproach of
'I. e. of whom cognition is not a mere attribute.
? Although in reality there is no such thing as an individual soul.
Nanu givabrahmanor aikyam na kvâpi s@trakâro mukhalo vadati kim tu sarvatra bhedam eva, ato naikyam ishtam tatraha pratipadyam tv iti.
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