Page Text
________________
III ADHYAYA, 2 PÂDA, 10.
149
one which had obtained final release, and that would imply that final release can have an end. But it is impossible that a soul which has once freed itself from Nescience should again rise (enter into phenomenal life). Hereby it is also shown that the soul which rises cannot be the Lord, who is everlastingly free from Nescience.-Further, on the hypothesis of another soul rising, it would be difficult to escape the conclusion that souls reap the fruits of deeds not their own, and, on the other hand, are not requited for what they have done.-From all this it follows that the person rising from sleep is the same that went to sleep. Nor is it difficult to refute the analogical reasoning that the soul, if once united with Brahman, can no more emerge from it than a drop of water can again be taken out from the mass of water into which it had been poured. We admit the impossibility of taking out the same drop of water, because there is no means of distinguishing it from all the other drops. In the case of the soul, however, there are reasons of distinction, viz. the work and the knowledge (of each individual soul). Hence the two cases are not analogous. Further, we point out that the flamingo, e.g. is able to distinguish and separate milk and water when mixed, things which we men are altogether incapable of distinguishing.-Moreover, what is called individual soul is not really different from the highest Self, so that it might be distinguished from the latter in the same way as a drop of water from the mass of water ; but, as we have explained repeatedly, Brahman itself is on account of its connexion with limiting adjuncts metaphorically called individual soul. Hence the phenomenal existence of one soul lasts as long as it continues to be bound by one set of adjuncts, and the phenomenal existence of another soul again lasts as long as it continues to be bound by another set of adjuncts. Each set of adjuncts continues through the states of sleep as well as of waking ; in the former it is like a seed, in the latter like the fully developed plant. Hence the proper inference is that the same soul awakes from sleep.
10. In him who is senseless (in a swoon, &c.)
Digitized by
Digilzed by Google
| SR No. | 007682 |
| Book Title | Questions of King Milinda Part 02 |
| 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 |