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674
VEDÂNTA-SOTRAS.
free from all sin and imperfection. Some hold the former view, on the ground that the meditating Self is within a body. For as long as the Self dwells within a body, it is a knower, doer, enjoyer, and so on, and it can bring about the result of its meditation only as viewed under that aspect. A person who, desirous of the heavenly world or a similar result, enters on some sacrificial action may, after he has reached that result, possess characteristics different from those of a knowing, doing, and enjoying subject, but those characteristics cannot be attributed to him as long as he is in the state of having to bring about the means of accomplishing those ends; in the latter state he must be viewed as an ordinary agent, and there it would be of no use to view him as something different. And the same holds equally good with regard to a person engaged in meditation.-But, an objection is raised, the text as the thought of a man is in this world, so he will be when he has departed this life' (Kh. Up. III, 14, 1) does declare a difference (between the agent engaged in sacri. ficial action, and the meditating subject), and from this it follows that the meditating Self is to be conceived as having a nature free from all evil, and so on.-Not so, the Půrvapakshin replies ; for the clause, howsoever they meditate on him,' proves that that text refers to the equality of the object meditated upon (not of the meditating subject).-To this the next Sûtra replies.
52. But this is not so, (but rather) difference; since it is of the being of that; as in the case of intuition.
It is not true that the meditating subject must be conceived as having the ordinary characteristics of knowing, acting, &c.; it rather possesses those characteristic properties“freedom from evil, and so on-which distinguish the state of Release from the Samsåra state. At the time of meditation the Self of the devotee is of exactly the same nature as the released Self. For it is of the being of that,' i.e. it attains the nature of that-as proved by the texts,
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