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III ADHYÂYA, I PÂDA, 5.
587
asserts the latter point must be explained in some other way !-Not so, the Sätra replies. The text stating that the organs go to fire, and so on, cannot be taken in its literal sense ; for it continues, 'the hairs of the body enter into herbs, the hair of the head into trees' (which manifestly is not true, in its literal sense). The going of speech, the eye, and so on, must therefore be understood to mean that the different organs approach the divinities (Agni and the rest) who preside over them.
5. Should it be said, on account of absence of mention in the first (reply); we say no, for just that (is meant), on the ground of fitness.
An objection is raised to the conclusion arrived at under III, 1, 1; on the ground that in the first oblation, described in Kh. Up. V, 4, 2, as being made into the heavenly world, water is not mentioned at all as the thing offered. The text says, 'on that altar the gods offer sraddha'; and by sraddhå (belief) everybody understands a certain activity of mind. Water therefore is not the thing offered.-Not so, we reply. It is nothing else but water, which there is called sraddha. For thus only question and answer have a sense. For the question is, 'Do you know why in the fifth libation water is called man?' and at the outset of the reply sraddha is mentioned as constituting the oblation made into the heavenly world viewed as a fire. If here the word sraddha did not denote water, question and answer would refer to different topics, and there would be no connexion. The form in which the final statement is introduced (iti tu pañkamyam, &c., 'but thus in the fifth oblation,' &c.), moreover, also intimates that sraddhå means water. The word 'iti,' thus, here intimates that the answer is meant to dispose of the question, 'Do you know how ?' &c. Sraddhå becomes moon, rain, food, seed, embryo in succession, and thus the water comes to be called man. Moreover, the word sraddha is actually used in the Veda in the sense of water'; 'he carries water, sraddhå indeed is water' (Taitt. Samh. I, 6, 8, 1). And what the text says as
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