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CHAPTER III, 4.
163
Sanatsugåta said: Since the Vedas, together with the mind ?, fail to attain to him, hence (is he) taciturnity She about whom the words of the Vedas were uttered, and who, O king! shines forth as consubstantial. with them.
Dhritarashtra said: Does the twice-born person who studies the Rik and the Yagus texts, and the Sama-veda, committing sinful. (acts), become tainted, or does he not become tainted ?
Sanatsugáta said: Not the Såman texts, nor yet the Rik texts, nor the Yagus texts save him, O acute sir! from sinful
' Cf. Kenopanishad, p. 39; Katha, p. 152; Taittiriya, p. 119. 1.Taciturnity is his name,' says Nflakantha. • Or, says Sankara, who is the author of the Vedas.'
• I. c. with the Vedas,' says Nilakantha, Om, the quintessence of the Vedas, being a name of the Brahman (as to which cf. Gitá, p. 79, and Maitrt, p. 84) Sankara takes the whole expression to mean
yotirmaya, consisting of light. Nflakantha says this stanza answers ibe five following questions put in the stanza preceding, viz. of what use is taciturnity? which of the two is taciturnity ? &c., as above. The first four questions are answered by the first two lines of this stanza - the substance of the answer being, that the use of lacitornity is to attain the seat which is not to be grasped even by the mind, that taciturnity includes both restraint of mind and of the external senses. By means of such restraint, the external and internal worlds cease to be perceived as existing, and the highest goal is attained.
· This question arises naturally enough on Nilakantha's interpretation of the preceding stanza, the meaning of which is in substance that the Vedas cannot grasp the Brahman fully, but they are of use towards a rudimentary comprehension of it, as is said funher on, see p. 172 infra.
• Cr. Svelásvalara-upanishad, p. 339; see, too, Nrisimha Tapins, pp. 81-98.
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