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


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Page 1358
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150
VEDÂNTA-SOTRAS.
enquiry into Brahman for the reason that the knowledge of Brahman has an infinite and permanent result, while the result of works is limited and non-permanent, is an alto. gether unjustified proceeding.
To this we make the following reply. To set aside the universally known mode of ascertaining the connexion of words and their meanings, and to assert that all words express only one non-worldly meaning (viz. those things to be done which the Veda inculcates), is a proceeding for which men paying due attention to the means of proof can have only a slight regard. A child avowedly learns the connexion of words and meanings in the following way. The father and mother and other people about him point with the finger at the child's mother, father, uncle, &c., as well as at various domestic and wild animals, birds, snakes, and so on, to the end that the child may at the same time pay attention to the terms they use and to the beings denoted thereby, and thus again and again make him understand that such and such words refer to such and such things. The child thus observing in course of time that these words of themselves give rise to certain ideas in his mind, and at the same time observing neither any different connexion of words and things, nor any person arbitrarily establishing such connexion, comes to the conclusion that the application of such and such words to such and such things is based on the denotative power of the words. And being taught later on by his elders that other words also, in addition to those learned first, have their definite meaning, he in the end becomes acquainted with the meanings of all words, and freely forms sentences conveying certain meanings for the purpose of imparting those meanings to other persons.
And there is another way also in which the connexion of words and things can easily be ascertained. Some person orders another, by means of some expressive gesture, to go and inform Devadatta that his father is doing well, and the man ordered goes and tells Devadatta ‘Your father is doing well. A by-stander who is acquainted with the meaning of various gestures, and thus knows on what.
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