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VEDÂNTA-SOTRAS.
trates the connexion with a body, of the soul in the Samsara state, by means of a comparison: "Like as a horse attached to a cart,' &c. After that he explains that the eye and the other sense-organs are instruments of knowledge, colour, and so on, the objects of knowledge, and the individual Self the knowing subject; and that hence that Self is different from the body and the sense-organs (Now where the sight has entered up to the mind is his divine eye'). Next he declares that, after having divested itself of the body and the senses, the Self perceives all the objects of its desire by means of its divine eye,' i.e. the power of cognition which constitutes its essential nature (He by means of the divine eye,' &c.). He further declares that those who have true knowledge know the Self as such (on that Self the devas meditate'); and in conclusion teaches that he who has that true knowledge of the Self obtains for his reward the intuition of Brahman—which is suggested by what the text says about the obtaining of all worlds and all desires ("He obtains all worlds and all desires,' &c., up to the end of the chapter).-It thus appears that the entire chapter proposes as the object of cognition the individual soul free from sin, and so on. The qualities, viz, freedom from guilt, &c., may thus belong to the individual Self, and on this ground we conclude that the small ether is the individual Self.
This view the second half of the Satra sets aside. The two sections, that which treats of the small ether and that which contains the teaching of Pragâpati, have different topics. Pragàpati's teaching refers to the individual soul, whose true nature, with its qualities such as freedom from evil, &c., is at first hidden by untruth, while later on, when it has freed itself from the bondage of karman, risen from the body, and approached the highest light, it manifests itself in its true form and then is characterised by freedom from all evil and by other auspicious qualities. In the section treating of the small ether, on the other hand, we have to do with the small ether, i.e. the highest Brahman, whose true nature is never hidden, and which therefore is unconditionally characterised by freedom from evil, and so on.
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