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


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Page 1420
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212
VEDÂNTA-SÛTRAS..
he,' does not refer to the tail' only as something other than the Self of bliss, but to the entire Self of bliss. And there may very well be a doubt with regard to the knowledge or non-knowledge of the existence of that Self consisting of unlimited bliss. On your view also the circumstance of Brahman which forms the tail not being known is due to its being of the nature of limitless bliss. And should it be said that the Self of bliss cannot be Brahman because Brahman does not possess a head and other members; the answer is that Brahman also does not possess the quality of being a tail or support, and that hence Brahman cannot be a tail.—Let it then be said that the expression, Brahman is the tail,' is merely figurative, in so far as Brahman is the substrate of all things imagined through avidyå l-But, the Purvapakshin rejoins, we may as well assume that the ascription to Brahman of joy, as its head and so on, is also merely figurative, meant to illustrate the nature of Brahman, i.e. the Self of bliss as free from all pain. To speak of Brahman or the Self as consisting of bliss has thus the purpose of separating from all pain and grief that which in a preceding clause ('The True, knowledge, the Infinite is Brahman') had already been separated from all changeful material things. As applied to Brahman (or the Self), whose nature is nothing but absolute bliss, the term
anandamaya' therefore has to be interpreted as meaning nothing more than 'ånanda'; just as pranamaya means präna.
The outcome of all this is that the term 'ånandamaya' denotes the true essential nature-which is nothing but absolute uniform bliss of the giva that appears as distinguished by all the manifold individualising forms which are the figments of Nescience. The Self of bliss is the giva or pratyag-atman, i. e. the individual soul.
Against this prima facie view the Satrakâra contends that the Self consisting of bliss is the highest Self 'on account of multiplication.'-The section which begins with the words, 'This is an examination of bliss,' and terminates with the sloka, 'from whence all speech tums back '(Taitt. Up. II, 8), arrives at bliss, supreme and not to be surpassed, by successively multiplying inferior stages of bliss by a
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