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XII, 118. THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE ATMAN.
not fulfilled their sacred duties, are unacquainted with the Veda, and subsist only by the name of their caste, meet, they cannot (form) an assembly (for settling the sacred law).
115. The sin of him whom dunces, incarnations of Darkness, and unacquainted with the law, instruct (in his duty), falls, increased a hundredfold, on those who propound it.
116. All that which is most efficacious for securing supreme bliss has been thus declared to you; a Brahmana who does not fall off from that obtains the most excellent state.
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117. Thus did that worshipful deity disclose to me, through a desire of benefiting mankind, this whole most excellent secret of the sacred law.
118. Let (every Brâhmana), concentrating his mind, fully recognise in the Self all things, both the real and the unreal, for he who recognises the universe in the Self, does not give his heart to unrighteous
ness.
115. Nand. gives yad for yam, instead of tamobhûtâh, 'incarnations of Darkness,' the reading of the Dharma-sûtras, tamomûdhâh, 'perplexed by Darkness or ignorance.'
118. Sampasyet, 'let (every Brâhmana) fully recognise,' i. e. ' let him clearly realise in his mind' (sâkshâtkuryât, Medh., Kull.), through devotional exercises (upâsanâ, Medh.), or through deep meditation (Kull.), or 'let him vow to be solely intent on that one object of knowledge, to the exclusion of the knowledge of all other knowable objects' (gñeyântaravishayanirâkaranena tadekagñeyanishthâm anubrayât, Medh.). Atmani, 'in the Self,' i. e. 'in the Supreme Self' (Kull., Nand.), or 'in his own individual Self' (Gov.). Medh. remarks that the learned dispute regarding the meaning of the term âtman, and that besides the two explanations already given a third was proposed by some, according to which it meant 'the corporeal Self.' Medh. himself considers the first explanation to be the correct one. Sadasat, 'the real and the unreal,' i. e. either 'the
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