Dhammapada

SR No.: 007674
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Max Muller
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1881
Total Pages: 2540
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 45 MB

Page 2153

xviii
UPANISHADS.
explains : This universe, before it was developed in the present form, was the existent one, Brahma, itself. This cannot be. If idam,' this, i.e. the visible world, were the subject, how could the Upanishad go on and say, tad aikshata bahu syâm pragâyeyeti tat tego 'srigata, that thought, may I be many, may I grow forth. It sent forth fire. This can be said of the Sat only, that is, the Brahman? Sat, therefore, is the subject, not idam, for a Vedântist may well say that Brahman is the world, or sent forth the world, but not that the world, which is a mere illusion, was, in the beginning, Brahman.
This becomes clearer still in another passage, Maitr. Up. VI, 17, where we read : Brahma ha vâ idam agra âsîd eko 'nantah,'In the beginning Brahman was all this. He was one, and infinite.' Here the transition from the neuter to the masculine gender shows that Brahman only can be the subject, both in the first and in the second sentence.
In English it may seem to make little difference whether we say, 'Brahman was this,' or 'this was Brahman.' In Sanskrit too we find, Brahma khalv idam vâva sarvam,
Brahman indeed is all this’ (Maitr. Up. IV, 6), and Sarvam khaly idam Brahma, all this is Brahman indeed'(Khând. Up. III, 14, 1). But the logical meaning is always that Brahman was all this, i. e. all that we see now, Brahman being the subject, idam the predicate. Brahman becomes idam, not idam Brahman. Thus the Pañkadasî, I, 18, says:
Ekadasendriyair yuktyâ sâstrenâpy avagamyate
Yâvat kimkid bhaved etad idamsabdoditam gagat, which Mr. A. Venis (Pandit, V, p. 667) translates : 'Whatever may be apprehended through the eleven organs, by argument and revelation, i. e. the world of phenomena, is expressed by the word idam, this.' The Pañkadasî then goes on:
Idam sarvam purâ srishter ekam evâdvitîyakam
Sad evâsîn nâmarūpe nâstâm ity Aruner vakah. This Mr. Venis translates : Previous to creation, all this
Sankara says (p. 398, 1. 5): ekam evâdvitîyam paramârthata idam buddhikale 'pi tat sad aikshata.
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