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676
VEDANTA-SUTRAS.
There are certain meditations connected with certain constituent elements of sacrifices-as e. g. 'Let a man meditate on the syllable Om (as) the Udgitha' (Kh. Up. I, 1, 1); 'Let a man meditate on the fivefold Sâman as the five worlds' (Kh. Up. II, 2, 1), &c. The question here arises whether those meditations are restricted to the members of those sâkhâs in whose texts they are mentioned; or to be connected with the Udgitha, and so on, in all sâkhâs. There is here a legitimate ground for doubt, in so far as, although the general agreement of all Vedanta-texts is established, the Udgitha, and so on, are different in each Veda since the accents differ in the different Vedas.-The Purvapakshin declares that those meditations are limited each to its particular sâkhâ; for, he says, the injunction 'Let him meditate on the Udgitha' does indeed, verbally, refer to the Udgîtha in general; but as what stands nearest to this injunction is the special Udgîtha of the sâkhâ, in whose text this injunction occurs, and which shares the peculiarities of accent characteristic of that sâkhâ, we decide that the meditation is enjoined on members of that sâkhâ only. The Sûtra sets this opinion aside. The injunction of meditations of this type is valid for all sâkhâs, since the text expressly connects them with the Udgitha in general. They therefore hold good wherever there is an Udgîtha. The individual Udgîthas of the several såkhâs are indeed distinguished by different accentuation; but the general statement, 'Let him meditate on the Udgitha,' suggests to the mind not any particular Udgitha, but the Udgitha in general, and hence there is no reason to restrict the meditation to a particular sâkhâ. From the principle moreover that all sâkhâs teach the same doctrine, it follows that the sacrifice enjoined in the different sâkhâs is one only; and hence there is no reason to hold that the Udgîtha suggested by the injunction of the meditation is a particular one. For the Udgitha is only an element in the sacrifice, and the sacrifice is one and the same. The meditations are not therefore limited to particular sâkhâs.
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