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


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Page 1467
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I ADHYAYA, 2 PÂDA, 1.
259
meditate with a calm mind on this world as originating, ending, and breathing in Brahman,' conveys the imagina. tion of meditation on Brahman as the Self of all. The subsequent clause. Let him form the thought,' &c., forms an additional statement to that injunction, the purport of which is to suggest certain attributes of Brahman, such as being made of mind. So that the meaning of the whole section is 'Let a man meditate on Brahman, which is made of mind, has breath for its body, &c., as the Self of the whole world.'-Here a doubt presents itself. Does the term 'Brahman' in this section denote the individual soul or the highest Self ?—The individual soul, the Pûrva. pakshin maintains, for that only admits of being exhibited in co-ordination with the word 'all.' For the word 'all' denotes the entire world from Brahmå down to a blade of grass; and the existence of Brahma and other individual beings is determined by special forms of karman, the root of which is the beginningless Nescience of the individual soul. The highest Brahman, on the other hand, which is all-knowing, all-powerful, free from all evil and all shadow of Nescience and similar imperfections, cannot possibly exist as the 'All' which comprises within itself everything that is bad. Moreover we find that occasionally the term
Brahman 'is applied to the individual soul also; just as the highest Lord (paramesvara) may be called 'the highest Self' (paramâtman) or the highest Brahman. That 'greatness' (brihattva; which is the essential characteristic of 'brahman') belongs to the individual soul when it has freed itself from its limiting conditions, is moreover attested by scripture: That (soul) is fit for infinity' (Svet. Up.V, 9). And as the soul's Nescience is due to karman (only), the text may very well designate it—as it does by means of the term 'taggalan '-as the cause of the origin, subsistence, and reabsorption of the world. That is to say—the indi. vidual soul which, in its essential nature, is non-limited, and therefore of the nature of Brahman, owing to the influence of Nescience enters into the state of a god, or a man, or an animal, or a plant.
This view is rejected by the Satra. 'Everywhere,' i.e.
S2
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