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


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Page 1418
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VEDANTA-SUTRAS.
Highest,' the true nature of the giva, free from all connexion with matter, is referred to as something to be attained; and of this nature a definition is given in the words, 'The True, knowledge, the Infinite is Brahman.' The attainment of the giva in this form is what constitutes Release, in agreement with the text, 'So long as he is in the body he cannot get free from pleasure and pain; but when he is free from the body then neither pleasure nor pain touches him' (Kk. Up. VIII, 12, 1). This true nature of the Self, free from all avidyâ, which the text begins by presenting as an object to be attained, is thereupon declared to be the Self consisting of bliss. In order to lead up to this-just as a man points out to another the moon by first pointing out the branch of a tree near which the moon is to be seen -the text at first refers to the body ('Man consists of food'); next to the vital breath with its five modifications which is within the body and supports it; then to the manas within the vital breath; then to the buddhi within the manas- the Self consisting of breath'; 'the Self consisting of mind' (manas); 'the Self consisting of understanding' (vignana). Having thus gradually led up to the giva, the text finally points out the latter, which is the innermost of all (Different from that is the inner Self which consists of bliss'), and thus completes the series of Selfs one inside the other. We hence conclude that the Self consisting of bliss is that same gîva-self which was at the outset pointed out as the Brahman to be attained. But the clause immediately following, 'Brahman is the tail, the support (of the Self of bliss'), indicates that Brahman is something different from the Self of bliss!--By no means (the Purvapakshin rejoins). Brahman is, owing to its different characteristics, there compared to an animal body, and head, wings, and tail are ascribed to it, just as in a preceding clause the body consisting of food had also been imagined as having head, wings, and tail-these members not being something different from the body, but the body itself. Joy, satisfaction, great satisfaction, bliss, are imagined as the members, non-different from it, of Brahman consisting of bliss, and of them all the unmixed bliss-constituted
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