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


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Page 1829
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III ADHYAYA, 2 PÂDA, 30.
621
29. And on account of denial.
Texts such as 'This is that great unborn Self, undecaying, undying' (Bri. Up. IV, 4, 25), By the old age of the body that does not age' (Kh. Up. VIII, 1, 5), deny of Brahman the properties of non-sentient matter. From this it follows that the relation of the two can only be that of distinguishing attribute and thing distinguished, and hence of part and whole. Brahman distinguished by sentient and non-sentient beings in their subtle state is the cause; distinguished by the same beings in their gross state is the effect: the effect thus is non-different from the cause, and by the knowledge of the causal Brahman the effect is likewise known. All these tenets are in full mutual agreement. Brahman's freedom from defects also is preserved; and this and Brahman's being the abode of all blessed qualities prove that Brahman possesses the 'twofold characteristics.'-Here terminates the adhikarana of 'the coils of the snake.'
30. (There is something) higher than that; on account of the designations of bridge, measure, connexion, and difference.
The Satras now proceed to refute an erroneous view based on some fallacious arguments, viz. that there is a being higher even than the highest Brahman, the supreme cause, material as well as operative, of the entire world—a refutation which will confirm the view of Brahman being free from all imperfections and a treasure as it were of countless transcendentally exalted qualities.-There is some entity higher than the Brahman described so far as being the cause of the world and possessing the twofold characteristics. For the text That Self is a bank (or bridge), a boundary' (Kh. Up. VIII, 4, 1) designates the Self as a bank or bridge (setu). And the term 'setu' means in ordinary language that which enables one to reach the other bank of a river; and from this we conclude that in the Vedic text also there must be meant something to be reached. The text further says that that bridge is to be crossed:
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