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I ADHYÂYA, I PÂDA, 1.
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abundance, prevailingness, in agreement with Pånini, V, 4, 21, and the meaning is that Brahman prevails in the world in so far as the entire world constitutes its body. The co-ordination of the two words the world'and. He'thus rests on that relation between the two, owing to which the world is the body of Brahman, and Brahman the Self of the world. If, on the other hand, we maintained that the sästra aims only at inculcating the doctrine of one substance free from all difference, there would be no sense in all those questions and answers, and no sense in an entire sästra devoted to the explanation of that one thing. In that case there would be room for one question only, viz. 'what is the substrate of the erroneous imagination of a world?' and for one answer to this question, viz. pure consciousness devoid of all distinction!'-And if the co-ordination expressed in the clause and the world is he' was meant to set forth the absolute oneness of the world and Brahman, then it could not be held that Brahman possesses all kinds of auspicious qualities, and is opposed to all evil; Brahman would rather become the abode of all that is impure. All this confirms the conclusion that the co-ordination expressed in that clause is to be understood as directly teaching the relation between a Self and its body.—The sloka, 'From Vishnu the world has sprung: in him he exists: he is the cause of the subsistence and dissolution of this world : and the world is he' (Vi. Pu. I, 1, 35), states succinctly what a subsequent passage-beginning with the highest of the high' (Vi. Pu. I, 2, 10sets forth in detail. Now there the sloka, 'to the unchangeable one' (I, 2, 1), renders homage to the holy Vishnu, who is the highest Brahman in so far as abiding within his own nature, and then the text proceeds to glorify him in his threefold form as Hiranyagarbha, Hari, and Sankara, as Pradhana, Time, and as the totality of embodied souls in their combined and distributed form. Here the sloka, Him whose essential nature is knowledge' (1, 2, 6), describes the aspect of the highest Self in so far as abiding in the state of discrete embodied souls ; the passage cannot therefore be understood as referring to a substance free from all difference. If the sästra aimed
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