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


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Page 1366
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158
VEDÂNTA-SOTRAS.
known in a different aspect-as when it is said 'Where that crane is standing, that is the irrigated field of Deva. datta.'-But may we not say that from the text. The True, knowledge, the Infinite is Brahman,' we already have an idea of Brahman, and that hence its being the cause of the origin, &c., of the world may be taken as collateral indications (pointing to something already known in a certain way)?-Not so, we reply; either of these two defining texts has a meaning only with reference to an aspect of Brahman already known from the other one, and this mutual dependence deprives both of their force.—Brahman cannot therefore be known through the characteristic marks mentioned in the text under discussion.
To this prima facie view we make the following reply. Brahman can be known on the basis of the origination, subsistence, and reabsorption of the world—these characteristics occupying the position of collateral marks. No objection can be raised against this view, on the ground that, apart from what these collateral marks point to, no other aspect of Brahman is known; for as a matter of fact they point to that which is known to us as possessing supreme greatness (brihattva) and power of growth (brimhana)—this being the meaning of the root brimh (from which · Brahman' is derived). Of this Brahman, thus already known (on the basis of etymology), the origination, sustentation, and reabsorption of the world are collateral marks. Moreover, in the Taitt. text under discussion, the relative pronoun-which appears in three forms, (that) 'from whence,' (that) by which,' (that) 'into which' -refers to something which is already known as the cause of the origin, and so on, of the world. This previous knowledge rests on the Kh. passage, ‘Being only this was in the beginning,' &c., up to 'it sent forth fire'—which declares that the one principle denoted as 'being' is the universal material, and instrumental cause. There the clause "Being only this was in the beginning, one only, establishes that one being as the general material cause; the word 'without a second' negatives the existence of a second operative cause; and the clauses it thought, may I be many, may
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