Book Title: Grihya Sutras
Author(s): Hermann Oldenberg
Publisher: Oxford

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Page 2244
________________ I ADHYÂYA, I PÂDA, 5. 51 ness-can impossibly stand in need of any instruments of knowledge. The transmigrating soul (samsårin) indeed, which is under the sway of Nescience, &c., may require a body in order that knowledge may arise in it; but not so the Lord, who is free from all impediments of knowledge. The two following Mantras also declare that the Lord does not require a body, and that his knowledge is without any obstructions. There is no effect and no instrument known of him, no one is seen like unto him or better; his high power is revealed as manifold, as inherent, acting as knowledge and force.' 'Grasping without hands, hasting without feet, he sees without eyes, he hears without ears. He knows what can be known, but no one knows him; they call him the first, the great person' (Sv. Up. VI, 8; III, 19). But, to raise a new objection, there exists no transmigrating soul different from the Lord and obstructed by impediments of knowledge; for Sruti expressly declares that there is no other seer but he: there is no other knower but he' (Bri. Up. III, 7, 23). How then can it be said that the origination of knowledge in the transmigrating soul depends on a body, while it does not do so in the case of the Lord ?-True, we reply. There is in reality no transmigrating soul different from the Lord. Still the connexion (of the Lord) with limiting adjuncts, consisting of bodies and so on, is assumed, just as we assume the ether to enter into connexion with divers limiting adjuncts such as jars, pots, caves, and the like. And just as in consequence of connexion of the latter kind such conceptions and terms as 'the hollow (space) of a jar,' &c. are generally current, although the space inside a jar is not really different from universal space, and just as in consequence thereof there generally prevails the false notion that there are different spaces such as the space of a jar and so on; so there prevails likewise the false notion that the Lord and the transmigrating soul are different; a notion due to the non-discrimination of the (unreal) connexion of the soul with the limiting conditions, consisting of the body and so 01. That the Self, although in reality the only existence, imparts the quality of Selfhood to bodics and the like E 2 Digitized by Google :

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