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


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Page 1323
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I ADHYAYA, I PÂDA, 1.
115
before. Everywhere illumining power belongs to knowledge only; there may be light, but if there is not also knowledge there is no lighting up of objects. The senses also are only causes of the origination of knowledge, and possess no illumining power. The function of the light of the lamp on the other hand is a merely auxiliary one, in so far as it dispels the darkness antagonistic to the organ of sight which gives rise to knowledge; and it is only with a view to this auxiliary action that illumining power is conventionally ascribed to the lamp.-But in using the light of the lamp as a proving instance, we did not mean to maintain that it possesses illumining power equal to that of light; we introduced it merely with reference to the illumining power of knowledge, in so far as preceded by the removal of what obscures its object !-We refuse to accept this explanation. Illumining power does not only mean the dispelling of what is antagonistic to it, but also the defining of things, i.e. the rendering them capable of being objects of empirical thought and speech ; and this belongs to knowledge only (not to the light of the lamp). If you allow the power of illumining what was not illumined, to auxiliary factors also, you must first of all allow it to the senses which are the most eminent factors of that kind; and as in their case there exists no different thing to be terminated by their activity, (i. e, nothing analogous to the agñana to be terminated by knowledge), this whole argumentation is beside the point,
There are also formal inferences, opposed to the conclusion of the parvapakshin.-Of the agrâna under discussion, Brahman, which is mere knowledge, is not the substrate, just because it is agñana; as shown by the case of the nonknowledge of the shell (mistaken for silver) and similar cases; for such non-knowledge abides within the knowing subject.—The agñana under discussion does not obscure knowledge, just because it is agñana ; as shown by the cases of the shell, &c.; for such non-knowledge hides the object.-Agñana is not terminated by knowledge, because it does not hide the object of knowledge; whatever nonknowledge is terminated by knowledge, is such as to hide
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