Questions of King Milinda Part 02

SR No.: 007682
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: T W Rhys Davids
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1894
Total Pages: 2240
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 38 MB

Page 1051

38
VEDÂNTA-SOTRAS.
thought is to be known that atomic Self into which breath has entered fivefold' (Mu. Up. III, 1, 9). That the
Self spoken of there as atomic is the living Self, i.e. the lindividual soul, we see from its connexion with breath.Inference also favours the conclusion that the soul is of atomic size; i.e. we infer that from such passages as 'That living soul is to be known as part of the hundredth part of the point of a hair divided a hundred times' (Sve. Up. V, 9), and, 'That lower one also is seen small even like the point of a goad.'-But, an objection may here be raised, if the soul is assumed to be of atomic size, and therefore to occupy one point of the body only, the fact of sensation extending over the whole body would appear contrary to reason.' And yet it is a matter of experience that men bathing in the Ganges or in a pond experience the sensation of cold over their whole bodies, and again that in summer people feel hot all over the body.--To this objection the following Satra replies.
23. There is no contradiction, as in the case of sandal-ointment.
Just as a drop of sandal-ointment, although in actual contact with one spot of the body only, yet produces a refreshing sensation extending over the whole body; so the soul, although abiding in one point of the body only, may be the cause of a perception extending over the entire body. And as the soul is connected with the skin (which is the seat of feeling), the assumption that the soul's sensations should extend over the whole body is by no means contrary to reason. For the connexion of the soul and the skin abides in the entire skin, and the skin extends over the whole body.
24. If it be said (that the two cases are not parallel), on account of the specialisation of abode (present in the case of the sandal-ointment, absent in the case of the soul); we deny that, on account of the acknowledgment (by scripture, of a special place of the soul), viz. within the heart.
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