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VEDANTA-SUTRAS.
Kama (lovely things) in this passage means sons, &c., that are so called because they are beloved. But may not the term 'kâmâh' denote desires merely?—No, we reply; the word kâma is here used with reference to sons, &c.; for those form the general subject of discussion, as we see from some preceding passages, 'Choose sons and grandsons,' &c., and 'I make thee the enjoyer of all kâmas (Ka. Up. I, 1, 23; 24).-And that that shaper is the highest Self (pragña) we infer from the general subject-matter and from the complementary sentence. That the highest Self is the general subject-matter appears from II, 14, 'That which thou seest as neither this nor that.' And to that highest Self there also refers the complementary sentence II, 5, 8, 'That indeed is the Bright, that is Brahman, that alone is called the Immortal. All worlds are contained in it, and no one goes beyond.'-Now it is admitted that the world (creation) of our waking state of which the highest Self (prågña) is the maker is real; hence the world of our dreaming state must likewise be real. That the same reasoning applies to the waking and the sleeping state a scriptural passage also declares, 'Here they say: No, this is the same as the place of waking, for what he sees while awake the same he sees while asleep' (Bri. Up. IV, 3, 14).—Hence the world of dreams is real.-To this we reply as follows.
3. But it (viz. the dream world) is mere illusion (mâyâ), on account of its nature not manifesting itself with the totality (of the attributes of reality).
The word 'but' discards the pûrvapaksha. It is not true that the world of dreams is real; it is mere illusion and there is not a particle of reality in it.-Why?-'On account of its nature not manifesting itself with the totality,' i.e. because the nature of the dream world does not manifest itself with the totality of the attributes of real things.What then do you mean by the 'totality'?-The fulfilment of the conditions of place, time, and cause, and the circumstance of non-refutation. All these have their sphere in real things, but cannot be applied to dreams. In the first place there is, in a dream, no space for chariots and the like; for
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| SR No. | 007681 |
| Book Title | Questions of King Milinda Part 01 |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | T W Rhys Davids |
| Publisher | Oxford |
| Publication Year | 1890 |
| Total Pages | 2695 |
| Language | English |
| Classification | Book_English |
| File Size | 47 MB |