Satapatha Bramhana Part 05

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

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Page 1730
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522
VEDANTA-SUTRAS.
darkness. A man who knows him passes over death; there is no other path to go' (Svet. Up. III, 8). And in the same way all texts agree in declaring that the works subserving the knowledge of Brahman are only those sacrificial and other works which the Veda enjoins on men in the different castes and stages of life: 'Him Brahmanas seek to know by the study of the Veda, by sacrifice, by gifts, by penance, by fasting. Wishing for that world only, mendicants wander forth from their homes' (Bri. Up. XI, 4, 22). In some texts enjoining devout meditation, and so on, we indeed meet with terms such as Pragâpati, Siva, Indra, Akâsa, Prâna, &c., but that these all refer to the supreme Reality established by the texts concerning Narayana-the aim of which texts it is to set forth the highest Reality in its purity-, we have already proved under I, 1, 30. In the same way we have proved under Sû. I, 1, 2 that in texts treating of the creation of the world, such as 'Being only this was in the beginning,' and the like, the words Being, Brahman, and so on, denote nobody else but Nârâyana, who is set forth as the universal creator in the account of creation given in the text, 'Alone indeed there was Narayana, not Brahmâ, not Isâna-he being alone did not rejoice' (Mahopanishad I).-As the Pasupati theory thus teaches principles, meditations and acts conflicting with the Veda, it must be disregarded.
37. And on account of the impossibility of rulership.
Those who stand outside the Veda arrive through inference at the conclusion that the Lord is a mere operative cause. This being so, they must prove the Lord's being the ruler (of the material cause) on the basis of observation. But it is impossible to prove that the Lord is the ruler of the Pradhana in the same way as the potter e.g. is the ruler of the clay. For the Lord is without a body, while the power of ruling material causes is observed only in the case of embodied beings such as potters. Nor may you have recourse to the hypothesis of the Lord being embodied; for-as we have shown under I, 1, 3-there arise
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