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I ADHYAYA, 4 PÂDA, 17.
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take the pronoun this' (in He of whom this is the work ') as denoting the perceptible world and to understand the same world—as that which is made by the term work.'
-We may indeed admit that the world also is not the previous topic of discussion and has not been mentioned before; still, as no specification is mentioned, we conclude that the term 'work' has to be understood in a general sense, and thus denotes what first presents itself to the mind, viz. everything which exists in general. It is, moreover, not true that the world is not the previous topic of discussion; we are rather entitled to conclude from the circumstance that the various persons in the sun, the moon, &c.) which constitute a part of the world had been specially mentioned before, that the passage in question is concerned with the whole world in general. The conjunction.or' (in 'or he of whom,' &c.) is meant to exclude the idea of limited makership; so that the whole passage has to be interpreted as follows, 'He who is the maker of those persons forming a part of the world, or rather—to do away with this limitation—he of whom this entire world without any exception is the work.' The special mention made of the persons having been created has for its purpose to show that those persons whom Bâlâki had proclaimed to be Brahman are not Brahman. The passage therefore sets forth the maker of the world in a double aspect, at first as the creator of a special part of the world and thereupon as the creator of the whole remaining part of the world; a way of speaking analogous to such every-day forms of expression as, 'The wandering mendicants are to be fed, and then the Brâhmanas' And that the maker of the world is the highest Lord is affirmed in all Vedanta-texts.
17. If it be said that this is not so, on account of the inferential marks of the individual soul and the chief vital air ; we reply that that has already been explained.
* By the Brahmanas being meant all those Brâhmanas who are not at the same time wandering mendicants.
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