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 964

408
THE LÎ xi.
BK. VIII.
8. In ceremonial usages we should go back to the root of them (in the mind), and maintain the old (arrangements of them), not forgetting what they were at first. Hence there is no need to be) calling attention to the demonstrations expressive of grief"; and those which (more particularly) belong to the court are accompanied by music. There is the use of sweet spirits, and the value set on water; there is the use of the (ordinary) knife, and the honour expressed by that furnished with (small) bells; there is the comfort afforded by the rush and fine bamboo mats, and the (special) employment of those which are made of straw. Therefore the ancient kings in their institution of the rules of propriety had a ruling idea, and thus it is that they were capable of being transmitted, and might be learned, however many they were.
9. The superior man will say, 'If a man do not have in himself the distinctions (embodied in ceremonies), he will contemplate that embodiment without any intelligent discrimination; if he wish to exercise that discrimination, and not follow the guidance of the rules, he will not succeed in his object. Hence if his practice of ceremonies be not according to the rules, men will not respect them;
individual and society. The auxiliary services in the first part of it were all preparatory to the great services that followed. That in the great college of LÀ was concerned with Hâu Ki, the ancestor of the House of Kâu and all its branches, and preliminary to the place he was to occupy at the great sacrifice to Heaven.
The remaining two paragraphs show how the natural feeling was quietly nourished, guided, and modified.
1 Yet much is said in the Than Kung about those demonstrations of grief in the mourning rites.
Digitized by
Digitized by Google