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766
Presidential Address
is philosophy, and the Orientalist has nothing to do with it ! Now see what amount of philosophy this philosophical tabloid-the little word contains. In this connection the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa relates how Indra approached Prajāpati and said, "Give me thy greatness”, whereupon Prajāpati answered, "Who shall I be without the greatness ?" and thereupon Indra observed, “Since thou saidst 'who (:) shall I be ? thou shalt be 'who' (5:)”. This legend means that God bereft of qualities ( nirguņa Brahma ) is an absolute ':' = X, the Unknown, who is elsewhere called in the Rk Samhitā '97', the Great Question. Sāyaṇa refers to this very fact when he says "féfetsfaşlaraqan trigat ada”. There is a passage in the Upanishad which declares that the Devas and the Asuras were children of Prajāpati and of them the Asuras were elder. "FIT & FIFTEET Qamigti : Frattarga 29T FETTET BETT: " ( Br. Up.) I cannot regard this as a meaningless myth. In it I recognise the the truth that the natural precedes the rational or ethical, and that both are embraced in one Cosmic Reality (9619fa) which is larger than Nature and Reason, Evil and Good. Compare Huxley, who says "Social Progress means a checking of the Cosmic process ( by Cosmic process Huxley means Natural process) at every step and the substitution for it of another which may be called the ethical process”. And he bids us "understand, once for all, that the ethical progress of society depends, not on imitating the cosmic process (that is, Nature) still less in running away from it, but in combating it". (This is the MEIETÉTTA' of the Upanishads and the Purāņas. )
