Questions of King Milinda Part 01

SR No.: 007681
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

Page 612

III ADHYAYA, 2 PÂDA, 21.
159
Whenever two things are compared, they are so only with reference to some particular point they have in common. Entire equality of the two can never be demonstrated; indeed if it could be demonstrated there would be an end of that particular relation which gives rise to the comparison. Nor does the satrakära institute the comparison objected to on his own account; he merely sets forth the purport of a comparison actually met with in scripture.- Now, the special feature on which the comparison rests is 'the participation in increase and decrease.' The reflected image of the sun dilates when the surface of the water expands ; it contracts when the water shrinks; it trembles when the water is agitated; it divides itself when the water is divided. It thus participates in all the attributes and conditions of the water ; while the real sun remains all the time the same.
-Similarly Brahman, although in reality uniform and never changing, participates as it were in the attributes and states of the body and the other limiting adjuncts within which it abides; it grows with them as it were, decreases with them as it were, and so on. As thus the two things compared possess certain common features no objection can be made to the comparison.
21. And on account of the declaration of scripture).
Scripture moreover declares that the highest Brahman enters into the body and the other limiting adjuncts, 'He made bodies with two feet, he made bodies with four feet. Having first become a bird he entered the bodies as purusha' (Bri. Up. II, 5, 18); and “Having entered into them with this living (individual) Self' (Kh. Up. VI, 3, 2). -For all these reasons the comparison set forth in Sutra 18 is unobjectionable.
Some teachers assume that the preceding discussion (beginning from Satra ) comprises two adhikaranas, of which the former discusses the question whether Brahman is an absolutely uniform being in which all the plurality of the apparent world vanishes, or a being multiform as the apparent world is; while the latter tries to determine
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