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I ADHYAYA, 3 PÂDA, 42.
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Mundaka) with reference to Brahman. Everywhere, in fact, the texts attribute supreme luminousness to Brahman only. Compare: Having approached the highest light he manifests himself in his own shape' (Kh. Up. VIII, 12, 3); 'Him the gods meditate on as the light of lights, as immortal time' (Bri. Up. IV, 4, 16); "Now that light which shines above this heaven' (Kh. Up. III, 13, 7).— It is thus a settled conclusion that the Person measured by a thumb is the highest Brahman.-Here terminates the adhikarana of him who is measured' (by a thumb).
42. The ether, on account of the designation of something different, and so on.
We read in the Khåndogya 'The ether is the evolver of forms and names. That within which these forms and names are (or “that which is within or without-these forms and names ") is Brahman, the Immortal, the Self' (VIII, 14). A doubt here arises whether the being here called ether be the released individual soul, or the highest Self.—The Purvapakshin adopts the former view. For, he says, the released soul is introduced as subject-matter in an immediately preceding clause, Shaking off all as a horse shakes his hair, and as the moon frees himself from the mouth of Rahu; having shaken off the body I obtain, satisfied, the uncreated world of Brahman. Moreover, the clause 'That which is without forms and names' clearly designates the released soul freed from name and form. And 'the evolver of names and forms' is again that same soul characterised with a view to its previous condition; for the individual soul in its non-released state supported the shapes of gods, and so on, and their names. With a view, finally, to its present state in which it is free from name and form, the last clause declares that is Brahman, the Immortal.' The term 'ether' may very well be applied to the released soul which is characterised by the possession of non-limited splendour.-But, as the text under discussion is supplementary to the section dealing with the small ether within the heart (VIII, 1, 1 ff.), we understand that
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