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 1260

III ADHYAYA, 3 PÂDA, 39.
247
the Vagasaneyaka are to be combined with the Khândogya-text also.—But this interpretation of the Satra appears objectionable. For the Khåndogya-vidya refers to the udgîtha and is thus connected with sacrificial acts, marks of which connexion are exhibited in the beginning, the middle, and the end of the vidya. Thus we read at the beginning, 'The Rik is the earth, the Saman is fire ;' in the middle, Rik and Saman are his joints and therefore he is udgitha;' and in the end, 'He who knowing this sings a Saman' (Kh. Up. I, 6, 1; 8; 1, 7, 7). In the Vagasaneyaka, on the other hand, there is nothing to connect the vidyâ with sacrificial acts. As therefore the subject-matter is different, the vidyas are separate and the details of the two are to be held apart.
39. (Having true) wishes and other (qualities) (have to be combined) there and here, on account of the abode and so on.
In the chapter of the Khândogya which begins with the passage, 'There is this city of Brahman and in it the palace, the small lotus, and in it that small ether' (VIII, 1, 1), we read, “That is the Self free from sin, free from old age, from death and grief, from hunger and thirst, whose desires are true, whose imaginations are true. A similar passage is found in the text of the Vågasaneyins, 'He is that great unborn Self who consists of knowledge, is surrounded by the Pranas, the ether within the heart. In it there reposes the ruler of all' (Bri. Up. IV, 4, 22).
A doubt here arises whether these two passages constitute one vidyâ, and whether the particulars stated in one text are to be comprehended within the other text also.
There is oneness of vidya'.-Here (the Satrakara) says, Wishes and so on,' i. e..The quality of having true wishes and so on' (the word kama standing for satyakâma, just
1 This clause must apparently be taken as stating the siddhantaview, although later on it is said that the two vidyâs are distinct (that, however, in spite of their distinctness, their details have to be combined).
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