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


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Page 1629
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II ADHYAYA, I PÂDA, 9.
421
beings, for the purpose of enjoyment.—That view also according to which a 'body' means no more than a means of enjoyment is refuted hereby.
You will now possibly try another definition, viz. that the body of a being is constituted by that, the nature, subsistence and activity of which depend on the will of that being, and that hence a body may be ascribed to the Lord in so far as the essential nature, subsistence, and activity of all depend on him.-But this also is objectionable; since in the first place it is not a fact that the nature of a body depends on the will of the intelligent soul joined with it; since, further, an injured body does not obey in its movements the will of its possessor; and since the persistence of a dead body does not depend on the soul that tenanted it. Dancing puppets and the like, on the other hand, are things the nature, subsistence, and motions of which depend on the will of intelligent beings, but we do not on that account consider them to be the bodies of those beings. As, moreover, the nature of an eternal intelligent soul does not depend on the will of the Lord, it cannot be its body under the present definition.-Nor again can it be said that the body of a being is constituted by that which is exclusively ruled and supported by that being and stands towards it in an exclusive subservient relation (sesha); for this definition would include actions also. And finally it is a fact that several texts definitely declare that the Lord is without a body,' Without hands and feet he grasps and hastens' &c.
As thus the relation of embodied being and body cannot subsist between Brahman and the world, and as if it did subsist, all the imperfections of the world would cling to Brahman; the Vedanta-texts are wrong in teaching that Brahman is the material cause of the world.
To this prima facie view the next Satra replies. 9. Not so; as there are parallel instances.
The teaching of the Vedanta-texts is not inappropriate, since there are instances of good and bad qualities being separate in the case of one thing connected with two
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