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VEDANTA-SUTRAS.
is lighted up, yet he who knows departs through the skull only, while the others depart from other places.-Why so? -'On account of the power of knowledge.' If also he who knows departed, like all others, from any place of the body, he would be unable to reach an exalted sphere; and then all knowledge would be purportless. And on account of the application of meditation on the way forming a part of that.' That means: in different vidyâs there is enjoined meditation on the soul's travelling on the way connected with the vein that passes through the skull ;-which way forms a part of those vidyâs. Now it is proper to conclude that he who meditates on that way should after death proceed on it1. Hence he who knows, being favoured by Brahman abiding in the heart on which he had meditated, and thus becoming like it in nature departs by the vein which passes through the skull and 'exceeds the hundred,' i. e. is the hundred and first. The souls of other men pass out by other veins. For thus scripture says, in a chapter treating of the knowledge of Brahman dwelling in the heart, 'There are a hundred and one veins of the heart; one of them penetrates the crown of the head; by that moving upwards a man reaches immortality; the others serve for departing in different directions' (Kh. Up. VIII, 6,5).
18. (The soul after having passed forth from the body) follows the rays.
There is the vidyâ of him within the heart, which begins, 'There is this city of Brahman and in it the palace, the small lotus, and in it that small ether' (Kh. Up. VIII, 1, 1). A subsequent section of that chapter-beginning with the words, 'Now these veins of the heart'-describes at length the connexion of the veins and the rays, and the text then continues,' When he departs from this body, he departs upwards by those very rays,' and further on, 'By that
1 For otherwise the meditation enjoined would be 'adrish/ârtha' only; an alternative not to be admitted anywhere as long as a 'seen' purpose can be demonstrated.
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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 |