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


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Page 1406
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VEDANTA-SUTRAS.
198
of their being supplementary to injunctions of meditation, the only thing they effect is to set forth the nature of the object of meditation; and as, even if they are viewed as independent sentences, they accomplish the end of man (i. e. please, gratify) by knowledge merely-being thus comparable to tales with which we soothe children or sick persons; it does not lie within their province to establish the reality of an accomplished thing, and hence Scripture cannot be viewed as a valid means for the cognition of Brahman.
To this primâ facie view the Sûtrakâra replies, 'But this on account of connexion.' 'Connexion' is here to be taken in an eminent sense, as 'connexion with the end of man.' That Brahman, which is measureless bliss and therefore constitutes the highest end of man, is connected with the texts as the topic set forth by them, proves Scripture to be a valid means for the cognition of Brahman. To maintain that the whole body of Vedanta-texts which teach us that Brahman is the highest object to be attained, since it consists of supreme bliss free of all blemish whatsoever-is devoid of all use and purpose merely because it does not aim at action or the cessation of action; is no better than to say that a youth of royal descent is of no use because he does not belong to a community of low wretches living on the flesh of dogs!
The relation of the different texts is as follows. There are individual souls of numberless kinds-gods, Asuras, Gandharvas, Siddhas, Vidyâdharas, Kinnaras, Kimpurushas, Yakshas, Rakshasas, Pisâkas, men, beasts, birds, creeping animals, trees, bushes, creepers, grasses and so on-distinguished as male, female, or sexless, and having different sources of nourishment and support and different objects of cnjoyment. Now all these souls are deficient in insight into the true nature of the highest reality, their understandings being obscured by Nescience operating in the form of beginningless karman; and hence those texts only are fully useful to them which teach that there exists a highest Brahman-which the souls in the state of release may cognise as non-different from themselves, and which
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