Satapatha Bramhana Part 05

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

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Page 1630
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VEDANTA-SUTRAS.
different states. The 'but' in the Sûtra indicates the impossibility of Brahman being connected with even a shadow of what is evil. The meaning is as follows. As Brahman has all sentient and non-sentient things for its body, and constitutes the Self of that body, there is nothing contrary to reason in Brahman being connected with two states, a causal and an effected one, the essential characteristics of which are expansion on the one hand and contraction on the other; for this expansion and contraction belong (not to Brahman itself, but) to the sentient and non-sentient beings. The imperfections adhering to the body do not affect Brahman, and the good qualities belonging to the Self do not extend to the body; in the same way as youth, childhood, and old age, which are attributes of embodied beings, such as gods or men, belong to the body only, not to the embodied Self; while knowledge, pleasure and so on belong to the conscious Self only, not to the body. On this understanding there is no objection to expressions such as 'he is born as a god or as a man' and 'the same person is a child, and then a youth, and then an old man.' That the character of a god or man belongs to the individual soul only in so far as it has a body, will be shown under III, 1, 1.
The assertion made by the Purvapakshin as to the impossibility of the world, comprising matter and souls and being either in its subtle or its gross condition, standing to Brahman in the relation of a body, we declare to be the vain outcome of altogether vicious reasoning springing from the idle fancies of persons who have never fully considered the meaning of the whole body of Vedantatexts as supported by legitimate argumentation. For as a matter of fact all Vedânta-texts distinctly declare that the entire world, subtle or gross, material or spiritual, stands to the highest Self in the relation of a body. Compare e. g. the antaryâmin-brâhmana, in the Kânva as well as the Madhyandina-text, where it is said first of non-sentient things (he who dwells within the earth, whose body the earth is' &c.), and afterwards separately of the intelligent soul (he who dwells in understanding,' according to the
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