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 836

IV ADHYAYA, 3 PÂDA, I.
383
i.e. we maintain that every one who desires to reach Brahman moves on the road beginning with light.-—Why so ?—'On account of its being widely known.' That road is known to all who possess knowledge. Thus the chapter of the vidyå of the five fires (" And those also who in the forest meditate on the True as faith,' &c., Bri. Up. VI, 2, 15) expressly states that the road beginning with the light belongs to those also who practise other meditations.That road, an objection is raised, may present itself to the mind in the case of those meditations which do not mention any road of their own; but why should it be accepted for such meditations as mention different roads of their own?
- This objection would be valid, we reply, if the various roads mentioned were entirely different; but as a matter of fact there is only one road leading to the world of Brahman and possessing different attributes; and this road is designated in one place by one attribute and in another place by another attribute. For this relation of attributes and what possesses attributes is established by the circumstance that we recognise, in all the passages quoted, some part of the road? And if the chapters which mention the roads are different, we, as long as the meditation is one, have to combine the different attributes of the road (mentioned separately in the different chapters), in the same way as (in general) the different particulars of one meditation (which are stated in different chapters) have to be combined. And even if the meditations (in which the particulars of the road are mentioned) are different, the road must be viewed as one and the same, because we recognise everywhere some part of the road and because the goal is everywhere the same. For all the following passages declare one and the same result, viz. the obtainment of the world of Brahman:
In these worlds of Brahman they dwell for ever and ever' (Bri. Up. VI, 2, 15); “There he dwells cternal years' (Bri.
Each passage mentions at least one of the stages of the road leading to the world of Brahman, and we thus conclude that the same road-of which the stations are the attributes—is meant everywhere.
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