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372
VEDÂNTA-SOTRAS..
in the continuation of the text, "him I believe the Self,' the 'him' connecting itself with the preceding in whom' is recognised to be Brahman. The five five-people must therefore be different from the categories of the Sankhya-system. 'And on account of the excess. Moreover there is, in the text under discussion, an excess over and above the Sankhya categories, consisting in the Self denoted by the relative pronoun 'in whom,' and in the specially mentioned Ether. What the text designates therefore is the Supreme Person who is the Universal Lord in whom all things abide—such as he is described in the text quoted above, 'Therefore some call him the twentysixth, and others the twenty-seventh. The even' in the Satra is meant to intimate that the 'five five-people' can in no way mean the twenty-five categories, since there is no pentad of groups consisting of five each. For in the case of the categories of the Sankhyas there are no generic characteristics or the like which could determine the arrangement of those categories in fives. Nor must it be urged against this that there is a determining reason for such an arrangement in so far as the tattvas of the Sånkhyas form natural groups comprising firstly, the five organs of action; secondly, the five sense-organs; thirdly, the five gross elements; fourthly, the subtle parts of those elements; and fifthly, the five remaining tattvas; for as the text under discussion mentions the ether by itself, the possibility of a group consisting of the five gross elements is precluded. We cannot therefore take the compound
five people' as denoting a group consisting of five constituent members, but, in agreement with II, 1, 50, as merely being a special name. There are certain beings the special name of which is five-people, and of these beings the additional word 'pañka' predicates that they are five in number. The expression is thus analogous to the term 'the seven seven-rishis' (where the term 'sevenrishis' is to be understood as the name of a certain class of rishis only).–Who then are the beings called 'five-people?' -To this question the next Satra replies.
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