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


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Page 1334
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126
VEDÂNTA-SOTRAS.
all this, and in that the other one is bound up by maya.' For this text declares that Prakriti—there called Måyå — produces manifold wonderful creations, and the highest Person is there called 'mayin' because he possesses that power of mâyâ; not on account of any ignorance or nescience on his part. The latter part of the text expressly says that (not the Lord but) another one, i. e. the individual soul is bound up by mâyâ; and therewith agrees another text, viz. “When the soul slumbering in beginningless Maya awakes' (Gaud. Ka.). Again, in the text 'Indra goes multiform through the Mâyâs' (Ri. Samh. VI, 47, 18), the manifold powers of Indra are spoken of, and with this agrees what the next verse says, 'he shines greatly as Tvashtri': for an unreal being does not shine. And where the text says 'my Mâyâ is hard to overcome '(Bha. Gi. VII, 14), the qualification given there to Maya, viz.' consisting of the gunas,' shows that what is meant is Prakriti consisting of the three gunas.—All this shows that Scripture does not teach the existence of a 'principle called Nescience, not to be defined either as that which is or that which is not.'
Nor again is such Nescience to be assumed for the reason that otherwise the scriptural statements of the unity of all being would be unmeaning. For if the text 'Thou art that,' be viewed as teaching the unity of the individual soul and the highest Self, there is certainly no reason, founded on unmeaningness, to ascribe to Brahman, intimated by the word 'that'—which is all-knowing, &c.—Nescience, which is contradictory to Brahman's nature.-Itihasa and Purâna also do not anywhere teach that to Brahman there belongs Nescience.
But, an objection is raised, the Vishnu Purana, in the sloka,' The stars are Vishnu,' &c. (II, 12, 38), first refers to Brahman as one only, and comprising all things within itself; thereupon states in the next sloka that this entire world, with all its distinctions of hills, oceans, &c., is sprung out of the agñana' of Brahman, which in itself is pure 'gñana,' i. e. knowledge; thereupon confirms the view of the world having sprung from agñana by referring to the fact that Brahman, while abiding in its own nature, is free
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