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I ADHYAYA, I PÂDA, 1.
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world, and the world is the body of Vasudeva ; such is the purport of sloka 44.—The next sloka sums up the whole doctrine; the words 'true and untrue' there denote what in the preceding verses had been called being' and 'non-being'; the second half of the sloka refers to the practical plurality of the world as due to karman.
Now all these slokas do not contain a single word supporting the doctrine of a Brahman free from all difference ; of a principle called Nescience abiding within Brahman and to be defined neither as that which is nor as that which is not; and of the world being wrongly imagined, owing to Nescience. The expressions that which is' and
that which is not' (sl. 35), and 'satya' (true) and 'asatya' (untrue; sl. 45), can in no way denote something not to be defined either as being or non-being. By 'that which is not' or 'which is untrue,' we have to understand not what is undefinable, but that which has no true being, in so far as it is changeable and perishable. Of this character is all non-intelligent matter. This also appears from the instance adduced in sl. 42: the jar is something perishable, but not a thing devoid of proof or to be sublated by true knowledge. "Non-being' we may call it, in so far as while it is observed at a certain moment in a certain form it is at some other moment observed in a different condition. But there is no contradiction between two different conditions of a thing which are perceived at different times; and hence there is no reason to call it something futile (tukhkha) or false (mithyå), &c.
Scripture does not teach that Release is due to the know
ledge of a non-qualified Brahman.-The meaning of 'tat tvam asi.'
Nor can we admit the assertion that Scripture teaches the cessation of avidya to spring only from the cognition of a Brahman devoid of all difference. Such a view is clearly negatived by passages such as the following: 'I know that great person of sun-like lustre beyond darkness ; knowing him a man becomes immortal, there is no other [48]
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