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188
VEDANTA-SOTRAS.
again the Khandogas mention, in addition to the most important prâna, four other prânas, viz. speech, the eye, the ear, and the mind; while the Vagasaneyins mention a fifth one also, 'Seed indeed is generation. He who knows that becomes rich in offspring and cattle' (Bri. Up. VI, 1, 6).— Now a difference of procedure in the point of addition and omission effects a difference in the object known, and the latter again effects a difference in the vidyâ, just as a difference in the point of material and divinity distinguishes one sacrifice from another.
To this we make the following reply.-Your objection is without force, since such differences of qualification as are met with in the above instances are possible even in one and the same vidyâ. In the Khandogyatext a sixth fire is indeed not included; yet, as five fires, beginning with the heavenly world, are recognised as the same in both texts the mentioned difference cannot effect a split of the vidyâ; not any more than the atirâtra-sacrifice is differentiated by the shodasin-rite being either used or not-used. Moreover, the Khândogyatext also actually mentions a sixth fire, viz. in the passage, V, 9, 2, 'When he has departed, his friends carry him, as appointed, to the fire.'-The Vagasaneyins, on the other hand, mention their sixth fire ('and then the fire is indeed fire, the fuel fuel,' &c.) for the purpose of cutting short the fanciful assumption regarding fuel, smoke, and so on, which runs through the description of the five fires with which the heavenly world and so on are imaginatively identified. Their statement regarding the sixth fire (has therefore not the purpose of enjoining it as an object of meditation but) is merely a remark about something already established (known). And even if we assume that the statement about the sixth fire has the purpose of representing that fire as an object of devout meditation, yet the fire may be inserted in the vidyâ of the Khandogas without any fear of its being in conflict with the number five mentioned there;
1 Viz. the real fire in which the dead body is burned and which is known from perception.
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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 |