Zend Avesta Part 03

SR No.: 007673
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: L H Mills
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1887
Total Pages: 2618
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 49 MB

Page 1790

60
VEDÂNTA-SOTRAS.
Self can clearly not resolve itself into the non-intelligent pradhâna. If, again, it were said that the pradhâna is denoted by the word own,' because belonging to the Self (as being the Self's own), there would remain the same absurd statement as to an intelligent entity being resolved into a non-intelligent one. Moreover another scriptural passage (viz.' embraced by the intelligent-prâgña-Self he knows nothing that is without, nothing that is within,' Bri. Up. IV, 3, 21) declares that the soul in the condition of dreamless sleep is resolved into an intelligent entity. Hence that into which all intelligent souls are resolved is an intelligent cause of the world, denoted by the word 'Sat,' and not the pradhâna.-A further reason for the pradhâna not being the cause is subjoined.
10. On account of the uniformity of view (of the Vedânta-texts, Brahman is to be considered the cause).
If, as in the argumentations of the logicians, so in the Vedânta-texts also, there were set forth different views concerning the nature of the cause, some of them favouring the theory of an intelligent Brahman being the cause of the world, others inclining towards the pradhâna doctrine, and others again tending in a different direction; then it might perhaps be possible to interpret such passages as those, which speak of the cause of the world as thinking, in such a manner as to make them fall in with the pradhana theory. But the stated condition is absent since all the Vedanta-texts uniformly teach that the cause of the world is the intelligent Brahman. Compare, for instance, 'As from a burning fire sparks proceed in all directions, thus from that Self the pranas proceed each towards its place; from the prânas the gods, from the gods the worlds' (Kau. Up. III, 3). And 'from that Self sprang ether' (Taitt. Up. II, 1). And all this springs from the Self' (Kh. Up. VII, 26, 1). And this prâna is born from the Self' (Pr. Up. III, 3); all which passages declare the Self to be the cause. That the word Self' denotes an intelligent being, we have already shown.
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