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-11]
TRANSLATION
pain
(8) The following argument might be put forward: Obiection. Vedic "We grant the inadequacy of the obvious means adequate remedies; but we have others prescribed in to removal of the Vedas in the shape of a host of such
acts as the Jyotistoma etc., which extend over the whole year; these will certainly remove the three kinds of pain absolutely and finally. Says the S'ruti : ‘Desir. ing heaven one must perform sacrifices,' and Heaven is thus described : ‘Happiness, unmixed and uninterspersed with unhappiness and attainable by pure longing for it is what is denoted by the word Heaven.' Heaven thus consists in such happiness as is diametrically opposed to unhappiness or pain and which by its inherent capacity extirpates pain from its very roots; nor is this happiness short-lived, --for, declares the S'ruti : “We drank the Soma and became immortal." (Atharvaśıras 111]. And if the celestial happiness were short-lived how could there be ' immortality ? Hence the Vedic reme. dies for the removal of pain, which can be gone through in a moment, a few hours, a day, a month, or a year,-are far easier than discriminative knowledge, which can be attained only by a continuous effort extending over many lives. Thus again, the proposed enquiry remains superfluous." The answer to this is suggested in the following Kārkā.
Karikā II The revealed is like the obvious, since it is connected with impurity, decay and inequality. That which is contrary to that is better, proceeding from the right cognition of the Manifested, the Unmanifested and the Cogniser (Spirit).*
* This Kārıkā embodies, as Davies rightly remarks, the leading principle of Kapila's philosophy according to which final emancipation is attainable not by religious rites, but by discriminative knowledge, as explained by Kapila.
