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

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Page 2467
________________ 274 VEDÂNTA-SOTRAS. the passage about the small ether within the lotus of the heart (Kh. Up. VIII, 1, 1). Further on the Bri. Up. says, *All the Selfs came forth from that Self ;' by which statement of the coming forth of all the conditioned Selfs it intimates that the highest Self is the one general cause. - The doctrine conveyed by the rousing of the sleeping person, viz. that the individual soul is different from the vital air, furnishes at the same time a further argument against the opinion that the passage under discussion refers to the vital air. 19. (The Self to be seen, to be heard, &c. is the highest Self) on account of the connected meaning of the sentences. We read in the Brihadaranyaka, in the Maitreyî-brâhmana the following passage, Verily, a husband is not dear that you may love the husband, &c. &c.; verily, everything is not dear that you may love everything; but that you may love the Self therefore everything is dear. Verily, the Self is to be seen, to be heard, to be perceived, to be marked, O Maitreyi! When the Self has been seen, heard, perceived, and known, then all this is known' (Bri. Up. IV, 5,6).-Here the doubt arises whether that which is represented as the object to be seen, to be heard, and so on, is the cognitional Self (the individual soul) or the highest Self. But whence the doubt ?—Because, we reply, the Self is, on the one hand, by the mention of dear things such as husband and so on, indicated as the enjoyer whence it appears that the passage refers to the individual soul; and because, on the other hand, the declaration that through the knowledge of the Self everything becomes known points to the highest Self. The pûrvapakshin maintains that the passage refers to the individual soul, on account of the strength of the initial statement. The text declares at the outset that all the objects of enjoyment found in this world, such as husband, wife, riches, and so on, are dear on account of the Self, and thereby gives us to understand that the enjoying (i.e. the Digitized by Google

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