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


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Page 1356
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148
VEDẦNTA-SOTRAS.
The Vedantin aiming to ascertain the nature of Brahman
from Scripture, need not be disconcerted by the Mimamed-theory of all speech having informing power with regard to actions only.
Here another prima facie view 1 finally presents itself. The power of words to denote things cannot be ascertained in any way but by observing the speech and actions of experienced people. Now as such speech and action always implies the idea of something to be done (karya), words are means of knowledge only with reference to things to be done; and hence the matter inculcated by the Veda also is only things to be done. From this it follows that the Vedånta-texts cannot claim the position of authoritative means of knowledge with regard to Brahman, which is not a thing to be done but) an accomplished fact.—Against this view it must not be urged that in the case of sentences expressive of accomplished facts—as e.g. that a son is born to somebody-the idea of a particular thing may with certainty be inferred as the cause of certain outward signs—such as e. g. a pleased expression of countenance-which are generally due to the attainment of a desired object; for the possible causes of joy, past, present, and future, are infinite in number, and in the given case other causes of joy, as e. g. the birth having taken place in an auspicious moment, or having been an easy one, &c., may easily be imagined. Nor, again, can it be maintained that the denotative power of words with regard to accomplished things may be ascertained in the way of our inferring either the meaning of one word from the known meaning of other words, or the meaning of the radical part of a word from the known meaning of a formative element; for the fact is that we are only able to infer on the basis of a group of words known to denote a certain thing to be done, what the meaning of some particular constituent of that group may be.-Nor, again, when a person, afraid of what he thinks to be a snake, is ob
· This view is held by the Prabhakara Mîmâmsakas.
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