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III ADHYÂYA, 3 PÂDA, 24..
221
Veda, the vedi, the sacrificial grass, the post, the butter, the sacrificial animal, the priest, &c., are mentioned in succession ; none of which particulars are mentioned in the Khandogya. The use also to which the Taittirîyaka turns the three libations is different from the Khandogya. And the few points in which the two texts agree, such as the identification of the Avabritha-ceremony with death, lose their significance side by side with the greater number of dissimilarities, and are therefore not able to effect the recognition of the vidya.—Moreover the Taittirîyaka does not represent man as the sacrifice (as the Khândogya does); for the two genitives (of him who thus knows' and 'of the sacrifice') are not co-ordinate, and the passage therefore cannot be construed to mean, The knowing one who is the sacrifice, of him the Self is,' &c. For it cannot be said that man is the sacrifice, in the literal sense of the word. The two genitives are rather to be taken in that way, that one qualifies the other, ‘The sacrifice of him who thus knows, of that sacrifice,' &c. For the connexion of the sacrifice with man (which is expressed by the genitive, 'the sacrifice of him ') is really and literally true; and to take a passage in its literal meaning, if possible at all, is always preferable to having recourse to a secondary metaphorical meaning 2. Moreover the words next following in the Taittirîyaka-passage, the Self is the sacrificer,' declare that man (man's Self) is the sacrificer, and this again shows that man's relation to the sacrifice is not that of co-ordination. Moreover as the section beginning with
Of him who thus knows' forms an anuvâda of something previously established (and as such forms one våkya to which one sense only must be ascribed), we must not bring about 'a split of the sentence' by interpreting it as
1 And therefore we are not warranted in taking the two genitives as co-ordinate, as otherwise they might be taken.
3 Which latter would be the case if we should take the two genitives as co-ordinate and therefore expressing an imaginative identification of the man and the sacrifice.
$ If man is the sacrificer he cannot be identified with the sacrifice: he is rather the Lord of the sacrifice.
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