Book Title: Satapatha Bramhana Part 05
Author(s): Julius Eggeling
Publisher: Oxford


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Page 1279
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I ADHYAYA, I PÂDA, 1.
I
Nescience and implicated in the Samsára; for this would contradict the nature of final release, and moreover the consciousness of the 'I' cannot be the cause of Nescience and so on. Nescience (ignorance) is either ignorance as to essential nature, or the cognition of something under an aspect different from the real one (as when a person suffering from jaundice sees all things yellow); or cognition of what is altogether opposite in nature (as when mother o' pearl is mistaken for silver). Now the 'I' constitutes the essential nature of the Self; how then can the consciousness of the 'I,' i.e. the consciousness of its own true nature, implicate the released Self in Nescience, or, in the Samsåra ? The fact rather is that such consciousness destroys Nescience, and so on, because it is essentially opposed to them. In agreement with this we observe that persons like the rishi Våmadeva, in whom the intuition of their identity with Brahman had totally destroyed all Nescience, enjoyed the consciousness of the personal 'I'; for scripture says, “Seeing this the rishi Vâmadeva understood, I was Manu and the Sun' (Bri. Up. I, 4, 10). And the highest Brahman also, which is opposed to all other forms of Nescience and denoted and conceived as pure Being, is spoken of in an analogous way; cp. Let me make each of these three deities,' &c. (Kh. Up. VI, 3, 3); “May I be many, may I grow forth'(Kh. Up. VI, 2, 3); He thought, shall I send forth worlds ?' (Ait. År. II, 4, 1, 1); and again, 'Since I transcend the Destructible, and am higher also than the Indestructible, therefore I am proclaimed in the world and in the Veda as the highest Person' (Bha. Gî. XV, 18); 'I am the Self, O Gada kesa' (Bha. Gî. X, 20); 'Never was I not' (Bha. Gi. II, 12); 'I am the source and the destruction of the whole world' (Bha. Gî. VII, 6); 'I am the source of all; from me proceeds everything' (Bha. G1. X, 8); 'I am he who raises them from the ocean of the world of death' (Bha. Gî. XII, 7); 'I am the giver of seed, the father' (Bha. Gî. XIV, 4); 'I know the things past' (Bha. GI. VII, 26). But if the 'I' (aham) constitutes the essential nature of the Self, how is it that the Holy One teaches the principle of egoity (ahamkara) to belong to the sphere
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