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VEDANTA-SUTRAS.
as not being real qualities of Brahman-have therefore to be omitted in meditations aiming at final release.-This objection the next Sûtra disposes of
662
39. On account of emphasis there is non-omission.
Attributes, such as having the power of immediately realising one's purposes, and so on, which are not by other means known to constitute attributes of Brahman, and are in the two texts under discussion, as well as in other texts, emphatically declared to be attributes of Brahman, as constituting the object of meditations undertaken with a view to final release, cannot be omitted from those meditations, but must be comprised within them. In the Khandogya the passage, 'Those who depart from hence, after having cognised the Self and those self-realising desires, move about at will in all those worlds,' enjoins the knowledge of Brahman as distinguished by the power of realising its desires and similar qualities, while the text, 'Those who depart from here not having cognised the Self, &c., do not move about at will,' &c., finds fault with the absence of such knowledge, and in this way emphasises the importance of the possession of it. In the same way the repeated declarations as to Brahman's ruling power ('the lord of all, the king of all beings,' &c.) show that stress is to be laid upon the quality indicated. It truly cannot be held that Scripture, which in tender regard to man's welfare is superior to a thousand of parents, should, deceitfully, give emphatic instruction as to certain qualities-not known through any other means of knowledge-which fundamentally would be unreal and hence utterly to be disregarded, and thus throw men desirous of release, who as it is are utterly confused by the revolutions of the wheel of Samsâra, into even deeper confusion and distress. That the text, 'there is not any diversity here; as one only is to be seen that eternal being,' teaches a unitary view of the world in so far as everything is an effect of Brahman and thus has Brahman for its Self, and negatives the view of pluralityestablished antecedently to Vedic teaching-as excluding Brahman's being the universal Self, we have explained
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