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

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Page 1927
________________ IV ADHYAYA, I PÂDA, 6. 719 pakshin holds the former view. For, he says, in form those injunctions do not differ from other injunctions of meditation on Brahman, and Brahman, as we have seen, constitutes the Self of the meditating Devotee.-This view the Sutra sets aside. A pratîka cannot be meditated on as being of the nature of Self; for the pratîka is not the Self of the meditating Devotee. What, in those meditations, is to be meditated upon is the pratika only, not Brahman: the latter enters into the meditation only as qualifying its aspect. For by a meditation on a pratîka we understand a meditation in which something that is not Brahman is viewed under the aspect of Brahman, and as the pratika-the object of meditation-is not the Self of the Devotee it cannot be viewed under that form.-But an objection is raised here also, it is Brahman which is the real object of meditation; for where Brahman may be viewed as the object of meditation, it is inappropriate to assume as objects non-sentient things of small power such as the mind, and so on. The object of meditation therefore is Brahman viewed under the aspect of mind, and so on. This objection the next Sûtra disposes of. 5. The view of Brahman, on account of superiority. The view of Brahman may appropriately be superimposed on mind and the like; but not the view of mind, and so on, on Brahman. For Brahman is something superior to mind, and so on; while the latter are inferior to Brahman. To view a superior person, a prince e. g., as a servant would be lowering; while, on the other hand, to view a servant as a prince is exalting.-Here terminates the adhikarana of 'symbols.' 6. And the ideas of Âditya and the rest on the member; on account of this being rational. 'He who shines up there let a man meditate on him as the Udgitha' (Kh. Up. I, 3, 1).—With regard to this and similar meditations connected with subordinate parts of sacrificial performances there arises the doubt whether Digitized by Google

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