Satapatha Bramhana Part 05

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

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Page 1448
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240
. VEDANTA-SÚTRAS.
a certain combination of matter which springs from the primal substance (prakriti) with its three constituents. Now connexion with such a body cannot possibly be brought about by the wish of such souls even as are free from all evil and capable of realising their desires ; for such connexion would not be to the soul's benefit. In the case, on the other hand, of a soul subject to karman and not knowing its own essential nature, such connexion with a body necessarily takes place in order that the soul may enjoy the fruit of its actions quite apart from the soul's desire.Your objection would be well founded, we reply, if the body of the highest Self were an effect of Prakriti with its three constituents; but it is not so, it rather is a body suitable to the nature and intentions of that Self. The highest Brahman, whose nature is fundamentally antagonistic to all evil and essentially composed of infinite knowledge and bliss—whereby it differs from all other souls possesses an infinite number of qualities of unimaginable excellence, and, analogously, a divine form suitable to its nature and intentions, i.e. adorned with infinite, supremely excellent and wonderful qualities-splendour, beauty, fragrance, tenderness, loveliness, youthfulness, and so on. And in order to gratify his devotees he individualises that form so as to render it suitable to their apprehension - he who is a boundless ocean as it were of compassion, kindness and lordly power, whom no shadow of evil may touch-he who is the highest Self, the highest Brahman, the supreme soul, Narayana l-Certain texts tell us that the highest Brahman is the sole cause of the entire world : 'From which these beings originate' (Taitt. Up.); "Being only was this in the beginning' (Kh. Up. VI, 2, 1); The Self only was this in the beginning' (Ai. Up. I, 1); 'Narayana alone existed, not Brahma nor Siva.' Other texts define his nature: The True, knowledge, infinite is Brahman' (Taitt. Up. II, 1, 1); Knowledge, bliss is Brahman' (Bri. Up. III, 9, 28); and others again deny of Brahman all connexion with evil qualities and inferior bodies sprung from Prakriti, and all dependence on karman, and proclaim his glorious qualities and glorious forms: Free from
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