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 1220

III ADHYAYA, 3 PÂDA, 17.
207
longing to the apparent world, show that in the Aitareyaka also some such qualified Self is meant.
To this we reply that the highest Self is meant in the Aitareyaka 'as in other places. As in other accounts of the creation ('From that Self ether was produced,'Taitt. Up. II, 1, &c.) the highest Self has to be understood, and, as in other cases where the term 'Self' is applied to particular Selfs, the 'Self within' (i.e. the highest Self) has to be understood in the first place; so it is here also.-In those passages, on the other hand, where the Self is qualified by some other attribute, such as having the shape of a person,' we must understand that some particular Self is meant.- In the Aitareyaka, however, we meet with a qualification, subsequent to the first reference to the Self, which agrees only with the highest Self; we mean the one implied in the passage, 'He thought, shall I send forth worlds? He sent forth these worlds.'-Hence we maintain that the highest Self is meant.
17. Should it be said that on account of the connected meaning (of the whole passage) (the highest Self cannot be meant); (we reply that) it is so, on account of the assertion.
We now have to refute the objection, made above by the pärva pakshin, that the highest Self cannot be meant 'on account of the connected meaning of the passage.'—The Satrakâra remarks, 'It is so, on account of the assertion.' That means: It is appropriate to understand the passage as referring to the highest Self, because thus the assertion that the Self, previously to the creation, was one only, gives a fully satisfactory sense, while on the other interpretation it would be far from doing so. The creation of the worlds recorded in the Aitareyaka we connect with the creation of the elements recorded in other Vedic texts, in that way that we understand the worlds to have been created subsequently to the elements; just as we showed above (II, 4, 1) that the passage, 'It sent forth fire,' must be understood to say that the creation of fire followed on the creation of ether
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