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I ADHYAYA, 3 PÂDA, 27.
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O Indra,'' come, O Lord of the red horses,' &c.—should be present at all those places. And that the gods, Agni and so on, really do come to the sacrifices is proved by the following scriptural text: 'To whose sacrifice do the gods go, and to whose not? He who first receives the gods, sacrifices to them on the following day' (Taitt. Samh. I, 6, 7, 1). In refutation of this objection the Satra points out that there is seen, i.e. recorded, the assumption of several bodies at the same time, on the part of beings endowed with special powers, such as Saubhari.
27. If it be said (that a contradiction will result) with regard to words; we say no, since beings originate from them (as appears) from perception and inference.
Well then let us admit that there is no difficulty as far as sacrifices are concerned, for the reason stated in the preceding Sutra. But another difficulty presents itself with regard to the words of which the Veda consists. For if Indra and the other gods are corporeal beings, it follows that they are made up of parts and hence non-permanent. This implies either that the Vedic words denoting themnot differing therein from common worldly words such as Devadatta-are totally devoid of meaning during all those periods which precede the origination of the beings called Indra and so on, or follow on their destruction; or else that the Veda itself is non-permanent, non-eternal.—This objection is not valid, the Satra points out, for the reason that those beings, viz. Indra and so on, again and again originate from the Vedic words. To explain. Vedic words, such as Indra and so on, do not like the word Devadatta and the like, denote, on the basis of convention, one particular individual only: they rather denote by their own power particular species of beings, just as the word 'cow' denotes a particular species of animals. When therefore a special individual of the class called Indra has perished, the creator, apprehending from the Vedic word 'Indra 'which is present to his mind the class characteristics of the beings denoted by that word, creates another Indra possessing
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