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I ADHYÂYA, 3 PÂDA, 8.
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asked) that the quality of being an ativadin, if merely based on the knowledge of the vital air-which knowledge has for its object an unreal product, is devoid of substance, and that he only is an ativadin who is such by means of the True. By the term 'the True' there is meant the highest Brahman; for Brahman is the Real, and it is called the 'True' in” another scriptural passage also, viz. Taitt. Up. II, 1, 'The True, knowledge, infinite is Brahman.' Nárada, thus enlightened, starts a new line of enquiry (Might I, Sir, become an ativadin by the True?') and Sanatkumâra then leads him, by a series of instrumental steps, beginning with understanding, up to the knowledge of bhûman. We therefrom conclude that the bhûman is that very True whose explanation had been promised in addition to the (knowledge of the) vital air. We thus see that the instruction about the bhūman is additional to the instruction about the vital air, and bhûman must therefore mean the highest Self, which is different from the vital air. With this interpretation the initial statement, according to which the enquiry into the Self forms the general subjectmatter, agrees perfectly well. The assumption, on the other hand (made by the pūrvapakshin), that by the Self we have here to understand the vital air is indefensible. For, in the first place, Self-hood does not belong to the vital air in any non-figurative sense. In the second place, cessation of grief cannot take place apart from the knowledge of the highest Self; for, as another scriptural passage declares, 'There is no other path to go' (Svet. Up. VI, 15). Moreover, after we have read at the outset, Do, Sir, lead me over to the other side of grief' (Kh. Up. VII, 1, 3), we meet with the following concluding words (VII, 26, 2), ' To him, after his faults had been rubbed out, the venerable Sanatkumara showed the other side of darkness. The term 'darkness' here denotes Nescience, the cause of grief, and so on.-Moreover, if the instruction terminated with the vital air, it would not be said of the latter that it rests on something else. But the brâhmana (Kh. Up. VII, 26, 1) does say, 'The vital air springs from the Self.' Nor can it be objected against this last argument that the concluding
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