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 645

192
VEDÂNTA-SOTRAS.
cognitions were separate, the particulars mentioned in different texts could not be combined; for they would be confined each to its own cognition and would not stand to each other in that relation in which the typical form of a sacrifice stands to its modifications. But as the cognitions are one, things lie differently.–The above Satra will be explained and applied at length further on, in Satra 10 ff.
6. If it be said that (the udgitha vidyâ of the Bri. Up. and that of the Khånd. Up.) are separate on account (of the difference) of the texts; we deny this on the ground of their (essential) non-difference.
We read in the Vågasaneyaka 1, 3, 1, 'The Devas said, well, let us overcome the Asuras at the sacrifices by means of the Udgitha. They said to speech : Do thou sing out for us.-Yes, said speech,' &c. The text thereupon relates how speech and the other pränas were pierced by the Asuras with evil, and therefore unable to effect what was expected from them, and how in the end recourse was had to the chief vital air, 'Then they said to the breath in the mouth : Do thou sing for us.-Yes, said the breath, and sang.'-A similar story is met with in the Khandogya I, 2. There we read at first that 'the devas took the udgîtha, thinking they would vanquish the Asuras with it;' the text then relates how the other pränas were pierced with evil and thus foiled by the Asuras, and how the Devas in the end had recourse to the chief vital air, 'Then comes this chief vital air; on that they meditated as udgîtha.'-As both these passages glorify the chief vital air, it follows that they both are injunctions of a meditation on the vital air. A doubt, however, arises whether the two vidyâs are separate vidyas or one vidya only. .
Here the purvapakshin maintains that for the reasons specified in the first adhikarana of the present pâda the two
1 The Pârvâ Mîmâmsâ teaches that all subordinate things which the Veda prescribes for some typical sacrifice are eo ipso prescribed for the modified forms of the sacrifice also.
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