Satapatha Bramhana Part 02

SR No.: 007678
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Julius Eggeling
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1885
Total Pages: 2521
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 44 MB

Page 1402

SECT. I.
KUNG YUNG.
311
those discharging them; in the ceremony of general pledging, the inferiors presented the cup to the superiors, and thus something was given to the lowest to do; at the (concluding) feast, places were given according to the hair, and thus was made the distinction of years. 58. They occupied the places (of their forefathers); practised their ceremonies; performed their music; showed their respect for those whom they honoured; and loved those whom they regarded with affection. Thus they served the dead as they served them when alive, and served the departed as they would have served them if they had been continued among them :-all this was the perfection of filial duty.
59. 'By the ceremonies of the border sacrifices (to Heaven and Earth) they served God, and by those of the ancestral temple they sacrificed to their forefathers 1. 60. If one understood the ceremonies of the border sacrifices and the meaning of the sacrifices of the ancestral temple, it would be as easy for him to rule a state as to look into his palm'.'
1 The phraseology of this paragraph and the next is to be taken in accordance with the usage of terms in the chapters on Sacrifices. With this ends, according to the old division of the Treatise, followed by the Khien-lung editors, the first section of it; and with it, we may say, ends also the special quotation by the author of the words of Confucius to illustrate what is said in the first chapter about the path being never to be left. The relevancy of much of what we read from paragraph 24 downwards to the purpose which it is said to serve, it is not easy for us to appreciate. All that the Master says from paragraph 48 seems rather to belong to a Treatise on Filial Piety than to one on the States of Equilibrium and Harmony.
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