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I ADHYÂYA, I PÂDA; 2.
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I grow forth,' and 'it sent forth fire,' establish that one being (as the cause and substance of everything). If, then, it is said that Brahman is that which is the root of the world's origination, subsistence, and reabsorption, those three processes sufficiently indicate Brahman as that entity which is their material and operative cause; and as being the material and the operative cause implies greatness (brihattva) manifesting itself in various powers, such as omniscience, and so on, Brahman thus is something already known; and as hence origination, &c., of the world are marks of something already known, the objection founded above on the absence of knowledge of another aspect of Brahman is seen to be invalid.-Nor is there really any objection to the origination, &c., of the world being taken as characteristic marks of Brahman in so far as they are distinctive attributes. For taken as attributes they indi. cate Brahman as something different from what is opposed to those attributes. Several attributes which do not contradict each other may serve quite well as characteristic marks defining one thing, the nature of which is not otherwise known, without the plurality of the attributes in any way involving plurality of the thing defined; for as thoge attributes are at once understood to belong to one substrate, we naturally combine them within that one substrate. Such attributes, of course, as the possession of mutilated horns (mentioned above), which are contradictorily opposed to each other, necessarily lead to the assumption of several individual cows to which they severally belong ; but the origination, &c., of the world are processes separated from each other by difference of time only, and may therefore, without contradiction, be connected with one Brahman in succession.-The text from whence these beings,' &c., teaches us that Brahman is the cause of the origination, &c., of the world, and of this Brahman thus known the other text 'The True, knowledge, the Infinite is Brahman,' tells us that its essential nature marks it off from every. thing else. The term 'True' expresses Brahman in so far as possessing absolutely non-conditioned existence, and thus distinguishes it from non-intelligent matter, the abode
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