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: . VEDÂNTA-SUTRAS.
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hended through the senses of another? and how is one subject to take to itself what another subject has cognised ? And should it be said that each stream of cognitions is one (whereby a kind of unity of the cognising subject is claimed to be established), yet this affords no sufficient basis for the ordinary notions and activities of life, since the stream really is nothing different from the constituent parts of the stream (all of which are momentary and hence discrete).That in reality the Ego constitutes the Self and is the knowing subject, we have proved previously.
18. If it be said that (this) is to be explained through successive causality; we say no,' on account of their not being the causes of aggregation :
If it be said that through the successive causality of Nescience and so on, the formation of aggregates and other matters may be satisfactorily accounted for.'. To explain. Although all the entities (acknowledged by the Bauddhas) have a merely momentary existence, yet all that is accounted for by avidya. Avidyâ means that conception, contrary to reality, by which permanency, and so on, are ascribed to what is momentary, and so on. Through avidyâ there are originated desire, aversion, &c., which are comprised under the general term 'impression' (samskåra); and from those there springs cognition (vigñana) which consists in the kindling' of mind; from that mind (kitta) and what is of the nature of mind (kaitta) and the substances possessing colour, and so on, viz. earth, water, &c. From that again the six sense-organs, called 'the six abodes'; from that the body, called 'touch' (sparsa); from that sensation (vedana), and so on. And from that again avidya, and the whole series as described ; so that there is an endlessly revolving cycle, in which avidya, and so on, are in turn the causes of the links succeeding them. Now all this is not possible without those aggregates of the elements and elemental things which are called earth, and so on; and thereby the rationality of the formation of those aggregates is proved.
To this the second half of the Satra replies Not so, on
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