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290
VEDÂNTA-SOTRAS.
feet, the sun the eye, the regions the ear; worship to him, the Self of the Universe !'-Now our text declares the heavenly world and so on to constitute the head and the other limbs of Vaisvånara. For Kaikeya on being asked by the Rishis to instruct them as to the Vaisvânara Self recognises that they all know something about the Vaisvånara Self while something they do not know (for thus only we can explain his special questions), and then in order to ascertain what each knows and what not, questions them separately. When thereupon Aupamanyava replies that he meditates on heaven only as the Self, Kaikeya, in order to disabuse him from the notion that heaven is the whole Vaisvânara Self, teaches him that heaven is the head of Vaisvanara, and that of heaven which thus is a part only of Vaisvanara, Sutegas is the special name. Similarly he is thereupon told by the other Rishis that they meditate only on sun, air, ether, and earth, and informs them in return that the special names of these beings are 'the omniform,' he who moves in various ways,'
the full one,''wealth,' and 'firm rest,' and that these all are mere members of the Vaisvanara Self, viz. its eyes, breath, trunk, bladder, and feet. The shape thus described in detail can belong to the highest Self only, and hence Vaisvânara is none other but the highest Self.
The next Sutra meets a further doubt as to this decision not yet being well established.
27. Should it be said that it is not so, on account of the word, &c., and on account of the abiding within ; we say, no; on account of meditation being taught thus, on account of impossibility; and because they read of him as person.
An objection is raised. Vaisvanara cannot be ascertained to be the highest Self, because, on the account of the text and of the abiding within, we can understand by the Vaisvanara in our text the intestinal fire also. The text to which we refer occurs in the Vaisvanara-vidyå of the Vågasaneyins, .This one is the Agni Vaisvânara,' where the two words 'Agni' and 'Vaisvanara' are exhibited in
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