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 630

III ADHYAYA, 2 PÂDA, 33.
The promise
in the beginning, one, without a second.' moreover that through the cognition of one thing everything will be known, renders it impossible that there should exist anything different from Brahman.-But does not the fact that the Self is called a bank, &c. indicate that there exists something beyond the Self?—No, we reply; the passages quoted by the pûrvapakshin have no power to prove his conclusion. For the text only says that the Self is a bank, not that there is something beyond it. Nor are we entitled to assume the existence of some such thing, merely to the end of accounting for the Self being called a bank; for the simple assumption of something unknown is a mere piece of arbitrariness. If, moreover, the mere fact of the Self being called a bank implied the existence of something beyond it, as in the case of an ordinary bank, we should also be compelled to conclude that the Self is made of earth and stones; which would run counter to the scriptural doctrine that the Self is not something produced. The proper explanation is that the Self is called a bank because it resembles a bank in a certain respect; as a bank dams back the water and marks the boundary of contiguous fields, so the Self supports the world and its boundaries. The Self is thus glorified by the name of bank because it resembles one.In the clause quoted above, 'having passed that bank,' the verb 'to pass' cannot be taken in the sense of 'going beyond,' but must rather mean to reach fully.' In the same way we say of a student, he has passed the science of grammar,' meaning thereby that he has fully mastered it.
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33. (The statement as to Brahman having size) subserves the purpose of the mind; in the manner of the four feet (quarters).
In reply to the pûrvapakshin's contention that the statements as to Brahman's size, prove that there exists something different from Brahman, we remark that those statements merely serve the purposes of the mind, i.e. of devout meditation. But how can the cognition of something con
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