________________
I ADHYAYA, 3 PÂDA, 13.
6
support of all things up to ether. The scriptural passage alluded to is III, 8, 11, That akshara, O Gârgî, is unseen but seeing, unheard but hearing, unperceived but perceiving, unknown but knowing.' Here the designation of being unseen, &c. agrees indeed with the pradhâna also, but not so the designation of seeing, &c., as the pradhâna is nonintelligent.-Nor can the word akshara denote the embodied soul with its limiting conditions, for the passage following on the one quoted declares that there is nothing different from the Self ('there is nothing that sees but it, nothing that hears but it, nothing that perceives but it, nothing that knows but it'); and, moreover, limiting conditions are expressly denied (of the akshara) in the passage, 'It is without eyes, without ears, without speech, without mind,' &c. (III, 8, 8). An embodied soul without limiting conditions does not exist1.-It is therefore certain beyond doubt that the Imperishable is nothing else but the highest Brahman.
171
13. On account of his being designated as the object of sight (the highest Self is meant, and) the same (is meant in the passage speaking of the meditation on the highest person by means of the syllable Om).
(In Pra. Up. V, 2) the general topic of discussion is set forth in the words, 'O Satyakâma, the syllable Om is the highest and also the other Brahman; therefore he who knows it arrives by the same means at one of the two.' The text then goes on, ' Again, he who meditates with this syllable Om of three mâtrâs on the highest Person,' &c.— Here the doubt presents itself, whether the object of meditation referred to in the latter passage is the highest Brahman or the other Brahman; a doubt based on the former passage, according to which both are under discussion.
The purvapakshin maintains that the other, i. e. the lower
1 A remark directed against the possible attempt to explain the passage last quoted as referring to the embodied soul.
Digitized by Google
