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III ADHYAYA, 2 PÂDA, 7.
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made above that we are compelled to allow option because the nådis, &c., serve one and the same purpose, is without foundation ; for from the mere fact of two things being exhibited in the same case it does not follow by any means that they serve the same purpose, and that for that reason we have to choose between them. We on the contrary see that one and the same case is employed even where things serve different purposes and have to be combined; we say, e.g.'he sleeps in the palace, he sleeps on the couch 1.' So in the present case also the different statements can be combined into one, 'He sleeps in the nadis, in the surrounding body, in Brahman. Moreover, the scriptural passage, ' In these the person is when sleeping he sees no dream; then he becomes one with the prâna alone,' declarcs, by mentioning them together in one sentence, that the nådis and the prâna are to be combined in the state of deep sleep. That by prâna Brahman is meant we have already shown (I, 1, 28). Although in another text the nadls are spoken of as an independent place of deep sleep as it were then he has entered into those nâdîs'), yet, in order not to contradict other passages in which Brahman is spoken of as the place of deep sleep, we must explain that text to mean that the soul abides in Brahman through the nadis. Nor is this interpretation opposed to the employment of the locative case (into-or in—those nådis '); for if the soul enters into Brahman by means of the nådis it is at the same time in the nâdis; just as a man who descends to the sea by means of the river Gangå is at the same time on the Gangå.—Moreover that passage about the nådis, because its purpose is to describe the road, consisting of the rays and nådis, to the Brahma world, mentions the entering of the soul into the nådis in order to glorify the latter (not in order to describe the state of deep sleep); for the clause following upon the one which refers to the enter
authority of the Veda; for the adoption of either alternative sublates, for the time, the other alternative.
Where the two locatives are to be combined into one statement, he sleeps on the couch in the palace.'
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