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II ADHYAYA, 2 PÂDA, 43.
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of the teachings of the Veda, and have never considered the hosts of arguments which confirm that teaching. When the Veda says, 'Morning after morning those speak untruth who make the Agnihotra offering before sunrise,' it is understood that the censure there passed on the offering before sunrise is really meant to glorify the offering after sunrise. We meet with a similar case in the 'bhama. vidya' (Kh. Up. VII, 2). There at the beginning Närada says, “I know the Rig-veda, the Yagur-veda, the Sama-veda, the Atharvana as the fourth, the Itihasa-purâna as the fifth,' and so on, enumerating all the various branches of knowledge, and finally summing up with all this I know the mantras only, I do not know the Self. Now this declaration of the knowledge of the Self not being attain. able through any branch of knowledge except the knowledge of the Bhūman evidently has no other purpose but to glorify this latter knowledge, which is about to be expounded. Or else Narada's words refer to the fact that from the Veda and its auxiliary disciplines he had not obtained the knowledge of the highest Reality. Analogous to this is the case of Sandilya's alleged objection to the Veda. That the Bhagavata doctrine is meant to facilitate the understanding of the sense of the Veda which by itsell is difficult of comprehension, is declared in the Paramasamhita, 'I have read the Vedas at length, together with all the various auxiliary branches of knowledge. But in all these I cannot see a clear indication, raised above all doubt, of the way to blessedness, whereby I might reach perfece tion'; and 'The wise Lord Hari, animated by kindness for those devoted to him, extracted the essential meaning of all the Vedanta-texts and condensed it in an easy form.' The incontrovertible fact then is as follows. The Lord who is known from the Vedanta-texts, i.e. Vasudeva, called there the highest Brahman-who is antagonistic to all evil, whose nature is of uniform excellence, who is an ocean, as it were, of unlimited exalted qualities, such as infinite intelligence, bliss, and so on, all whose purposes come true—perceiving that those devoted to him, according as they are differently placed in the four castes and the
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