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I ADHYÂYA, 3 PÂDA, 24.
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23. Moreover Smriti also speaks of him (i.e. of the prâgña Self as being the universal light).
Moreover that aspect of the prâgsa Self is spoken of in Smriti also, viz., in the Bhagavad Gîtâ (XV, 6, 12),
Neither the sun, nor the moon, nor the fire illumines that ; having gone into which men do not return, that is my highest seat.' And 'The light which abiding in the sun illumines the whole world, and that which is in the moon and that which is in the fire, all that light know to be mine.'
24. On account of the term, (viz. the term 'lord' applied to it) the (person) measured (by a thumb) (is the highest Lord).
We read (Ka. Up. II, 4, 12), 'The person of the size of a thumb stands in the middle of the Self,' &c., and (II, 4, 13), “That person, of the size of a thumb, is like a light without smoke, lord of the past and of the future, he is the same to-day and to-morrow. This is that.'—The question here arises whether the person of the size of a thumb mentioned in the text is the cognitional (individual) Self or the highest Self.
The pûrvapakshin maintains that on account of the declaration of the person's size the cognitional Self is meant. For to the highest Self which is of infinite length and breadth Scripture would not ascribe the measure of a span; of the cognitional Self, on the other hand, which is connected with limiting adjuncts, extension of the size of a span may, by means of some fictitious assumption, be predicated. Smriti also confirms this,'Then Yama drew forth, by force, from the body of Satyavat the person of the size of a thumb tied to Yama's noose and helpless' (Mahâbh. III, 16763). For as Yama could not pull out by force the highest Self, the passage is clearly seen to refer to the transmigrating (individual soul) of the size of a thumb, and we thence infer that the same Self is meant in the Vedic passage under discussion. To this we reply that the person a thunib long can only
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