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 699

246
VEDÂNTA-SÛTRAS.
of in V, 4.—But has not the purvapakshin shown that the clause alluded to can be accounted for even on the supposition of there being two vidyâs — The reasoning of the purvapakshin, we reply, would be admissible only if the separateness of the two vidyâs were established by some other clear and undoubted reason; in our case, however, there is a general possibility of both (viz. of the vidyâs being separate or not), and the very circumstance that the mentioned clause contains a back reference to the True spoken of in V, 4, determines us to conclude that there is only one vidyå of the True.—To the remark that there must be two vidyâs because the text states two different results, we reply that the statement of a second result merely has the purpose of glorifying the new instruction given about the True, viz. that its secret names are ahar and aham. Moreover, as in the case under discussion, the fruit of the vidyâ has really to be supplied from its arthavâda part, and as there is unity of vidya, all those fruits which the text states in connexion with the single parts of the vidyà are to be combined and put in connexion with the vidyå taken as a whole.—The conclusion therefore is that the text records only one vidya of the True, distinguished by such and such details, and that hence all the qualities mentioned, such as Truth and so on, are to be comprehended in one act of meditation.
Some commentators are of opinion that the above Sutra refers (not to the question whether Bri. Up. V, 4 and V, 5 constitute one vidyâ but) to the question whether the Vagasaneyaka-passage about the persons in the sun and in the eye, and the similar Khândogya-passage (I, 6, 6, Now that golden person who is seen within the sun,' &c.) form one vidyå or not. They conclude that they do so, and that hence truth and the other qualities mentioned in
1 For the vidya contains no explicit statement that a man desirous of such and such a fruit is to meditate on the True in such and such a way.--That in cases where the fruit is not stated in a vidhi-passage it must be supplied from the arthavâda-passages, is taught in the Pa. Mî. SQ. IV, 3, eighth adhikarana.
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