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 1200

III ADHYÂYA, 3 PÂDA, 2.
187
certain qualities such as being the first and best, and just as the material and the divinity constitute the form of the sacrifice, so the object known constitutes the form of the cognition. And finally both cognitions have the same name, viz. the knowledge of the prâna.-For these reasons we declare that the different Vedanta-texts enjoin identical cognitions.-A similar line of reasoning applies to other cognitions which are met with in more than one Vedantatext, so e.g. to the knowledge of the five fires, the knowledge of Vaisvanara, the knowledge of Sảndilya and so on. -Of the apparent reasons on the ground of which the purvapakshin above tried to show that the meditations are not identical but separate a refutation is to be found in the Parva Mîmamså-sûtras II, 4, 10 ff.
The next Satra disposes of a doubt which may remain even after the preceding discussion.
2. (If it be said that the vidyâs are separate) on account of the difference (of secondary matters), we deny that, since even in one and the same vidya (different secondary matters may find place).
In spite of the preceding argumentation we cannot admit that the different cognitions of Brahman are equally intimated by all Vedânta-texts, because we meet with differences in secondary matters (guna). Thus the Vagasaneyins mention in their text of the knowledge of the five fires a sixth fire (And then the fire is indeed fire,' Bri. Up. VI, 2, 14), while the Khandogas mention no sixth fire but conclude their text of the pañkågnividya with the express mention of five fires ('But he who thus knows the five fires,' Kh. Up. V, 10, 10).
Now it is impossible to admit that the cognition of those who admit that particular qualification (i.e. the sixth fire) and of those who do not should be one and the same. Nor may we attempt to evade the difficulty by saying that the sixth fire may be tacitly included in the vidya of the Khandogas; for that would contradict the number five' expressly stated by them.- In the colloquy of the pranas
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