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I ADHYAYA, I PÂDA, 6.
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also where Being (Sat) is the agent, because it is mentioned in a chapter where (thought) is generally taken in a figurative sense 1.
To this argumentation of the Sânkhya the next Satra replies:
6. If it is said that the word 'seeing ') has a figurative meaning, we deny that, on account of the word Self (being applied to the cause of the world).
Your assertion that the term 'Being' denotes the nonintelligent pradhâna, and that thought is ascribed to it in a figurative sense only, as it is to fire and water, is untenable. Why so ? On account of the term 'Self. For the passage Kh. Up. VI, 2, which begins · Being only, my dear, this was in the beginning,' after having related the creation of fire, water, and earth (ʻit thought,' &c.; "it sent forth fire,' &c.), goes on-denoting the thinking principle of which the whole chapter treats, and likewise fire, water, and earth, by the term 'divinities'-as follows, “That divinity thought: Let me now enter those three divinities with this living Self (gîva âtman)and evolve names and forms. If we assumed that in this passage the non-intelligent pradhana is figuratively spoken of as thinking, we should also have to assume that the same pradhana—as once constituting the subject-matter of the chapter-is referred to by the term 'that divinity.' But in that case the divinity would not speak of the gîva as Self. For by the term Gîva' we must understand, according to the received meaning and the etymology of the word, the intelligent (principle) which rules over the body and sustains the vital airs. How could such a principle be the Self of the non-intelligent pradhana? By
Self' we understand (a being's) own nature, and it is clear that the intelligent Gîva cannot constitute the nature of the non-intelligent pradhana. If, on the other hand, we refer the whole chapter to the intelligent Brahman, to
In the second Khanda of the sixth Prapathaka of the Kh. Up. aikshata' is twice used in a figurative sense (with regard to fire and water); it is therefore to be understood figuratively in the third passage also where it occurs.
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