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


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Page 1377
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I ADHYAYA, I PÂDA, 3.
169
Lord can put other bodies in motion ; for volition is not dependent on a body. The cause of volitions is not the body but the internal organ (manas), and such an organ we ascribe to the Lord also, since what proves the presence of an internal organ endowed with power and knowledge is just the presence of effects.—But volitions, even if directly springing from the internal organ, can belong to embodied beings only, such only possessing internal organs !—This objection also is founded on a mistaken generalization : the fact rather is that the internal organ is permanent, and exists also in separation from the body. The conclusion, therefore, is that—as the individual souls with their limited capacities and knowledge, and their dependence on merit and demerit, are incapable of giving rise to things so variously and wonderfully made as worlds and animated bodies are—inference directly leads us to the theory that there is a supreme intelligent agent, called the Lord, who possesses unfathomable, unlimited powers and wisdom, is capable of constructing the entire world, is without a body, and through his mere volition brings about the infinite expanse of this entire universe so variously and wonderfully planned. As Brahman may thus be ascertained by means of knowledge other than revelation, the text quoted under the preceding Satra cannot be taken to convey instruction as to Brahman. Since, moreover, experience demonstrates that material and instrumental causes always are things absolutely distinct from each other, as e.g. the clay and the potter with his implements; and since, further, there are substances not made up of parts, as e.g. ether, which therefore cannot be viewed as effects; we must object on these grounds also to any attempt to represent the one Brahman as the universal material and instrumental cause of the entire world.
Against all this we now argue as follows:-The Vedantatext declaring the origination, &c., of the world does teach that there is a Brahman possessing the characteristics mentioned; since Scripture alone is a means for the knowledge of Brahman. That the world is an effected thing because it consists of parts; and that, as all effects are observed to
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