Satapatha Bramhana Part 05

Book Title: Satapatha Bramhana Part 05
Author(s): Julius Eggeling
Publisher: Oxford

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Page 1595
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I ADHYAYA, 4 PÂDÀ, 19.
387
unity of purport of all Vedanta-texts, conclude that they all treat of the Sankhya soul only, and that hence the cause of the world is to be found not in a so-called Lord but in Prakriti ruled and guided by the soul.
This primâ facie view is set aside by the Sûtra. The whole text refers to the Supreme Lord only; for on this supposition only a satisfactory connexion of the parts of the text can be made out. On being told by Yâgñavalkya that there is no hope of immortality through wealth, Maitreyi expresses her slight regard for wealth and all such things as do not help to immortality, and asks to be instructed as to the means of immortality only ('What should I do with that by which I do not become immortal? What my lord knows tell that clearly to me'). Now the Self which Yagnavalkya, responding to her requests, points out to her as the proper object of knowledge, can be none other than the highest Self; for other scriptural texts clearly teach that the only means of reaching immortality is to know the Supreme Person-'Having known him thus man passes beyond death'; 'Knowing him thus he becomes immortal here, there is no other path to go' (Svet. Up. III, 8). The knowledge of the true nature of the individual soul which obtains immortality, and is a mere manifestation of the power of the Supreme Person, must be held to be useful towards the cognition of the Supreme Person who brings about Release, but is not in itself instrumental towards such Release; the being the knowledge of which the text declares to be the means of immortality is therefore the highest Self only. Again, the causal power with regard to the entire world which is expressed in the passage, 'from that great Being there were breathed forth the Rig-veda,' &c., cannot possibly belong to the mere individual soul which in its state of bondage is under the influence of karman and in the state of release has nothing to do with the world; it can in fact belong to the Supreme Person only. Again, what the text says as to everything being known by the knowledge of one thing ('By the seeing indeed of the Self,' &c.) is possible only in the case of a Supreme Self which constitutes the Self of all. What
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