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I ADHYAYA, 4 PÂDA, 8.
253 pradhâna) because no special characteristic is stated; as in the case of the cup.
Here the advocate of the pradhâna comes again forward and maintains that the absence of scriptural authority for the pradhana is not yet proved. For, he says, we have the following mantra (Sve. Up. IV, 5), “There is one agà ?, red, white, and black, producing manifold offspring of the same nature. There is one aga who loves her and lies by her; there is another who leaves her after having enjoyed her.'— In this mantra the words 'red,' white,' and 'black' denote the three constituent elements of the pradhana. Passion is called red on account of its colouring, i.e. influencing property; Goodness is called white, because it is of the nature of Light; Darkness is called black on account of its covering and obscuring property. The state of equipoise of the three constituent elements, i.e. the pradhâna, is denoted by the attributes of its parts, and is therefore called red-white-black. It is further called agà, i.e. unborn, because it is acknowledged to be the fundamental matter out of which everything springs, not a mere effect.-But has not the word aga the settled meaning of she-goat ?— True; but the ordinary meaning of the word cannot be accepted in this place, becausc true knowledge forms the general subject-matter.That pradhana produces many creatures participating in its three constituent elements. One unborn being loves her and lies by her, i.e. some souls, deluded by ignorance, approach her, and falsely imagining that they experience pleasure or pain, or are in a state of dulness, pass through the course of transmigratory existence. Other souls, again, which have attained to discriminative knowledge, lose their attachment to prakriti, and leave her after having enjoyed her, i.e. after she has afforded to them enjoyment and release. -On the ground of this passage, as interpreted above, the
As the meaning of the word agâ is going to be discussed, and as the author of the Satras and Sankara seem to disagree as to its meaning (see later on), I prefer to leave the word untranslated in this place.--Sankara reads-and explains,-in the mantra, sarQpâh (not sarūpam) and bhuktabhogam, not bhuktabhogyâm.
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