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THE PRACTICAL PATH.
(5). The language of the text could not have been the work of a Perfect Being (God), or of vegetarian saints; for the former would never directly or indirectly encourage an evil practice, nor employ misleading language, and the latter would never resort to a symbolism of flesh and blood.
To these must be added the fact that the Vedic text generally is intelligible only on the hypothesis of an esoteric philosophy underlying the surface meaning of words, though we may not be able to explain
feet, the stars are his bones, the clouds are his flesh. The deserts are the food which he consumes, rivers are his entrails, the mountains his liver and lungs, plants and trees his hair; the rising sun is his fore quarters, the setting sun is his hind quarters; when he yawns, that is the lightning, when he neighs, that is the thunder, when he waters, that is rain; his voice is speech. Day verily arose after the horse as the sacrificial vessel, which stands before him: its cradle is in the eastern ocean; night verily arose as the sacrificial vessel, which stands behind him : its cradle is in the western ocean; these two sacrificial vessels arose to surround the horse. As a racer he carries the gods, as a war-horse the Gandharvas, as a steed the demon, as a horse mankind. The ocean is his companion, the ocean his cradle.
“Here the universe takes the place of the horse to be offered, perhaps with the thought in the background, that the ascetic is to renounce the world (cf. Brih. 3,5,1; 4,4,22), as the father of the family renounces the real sacrificial gifts. In just the same way, the Chhandogya-Upanishad (1,1) which is intended for the Udgatar, teaches as the true udgitha : to be recognised and honoured the syllable om,' which is a symbol of Brahman (paramåtmu-pratikum); and the uktham (hymn) which belongs to the Hotar is subjected to a like transformation of meaning in Aitareya-âranyakam (2,1,2).--Compare Brahmasutra 3,3,55–56, where the thought is developed that symbolical representations (pratyaya) of this kind have validity not only within the Cakhâ, in which they are found, but also in general,"
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