Satapatha Bramhana Part 05

SR No.: 007680
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Julius Eggeling
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1900
Total Pages: 2017
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 44 MB

Page 1592

384
VEDÂNTA-SOTRAS.
that from which it again returns to the fruition of pleasure and pain ; that is nothing else but the highest Self. For, as other scriptural texts testify ("Then he becomes united with the True,' Kh. Up. VI, 8, 1; 'Embraced by the intelligent Self he knows nothing that is without, nothing that is within,' Bri. Up. IV, 3, 21), the abode of deep sleep is the intelligent Self which is different from the individual Self, i.e. the highest Self. We thus conclude that the reference, in question and answer, to the individual soul subserves the end of instruction being given about what is different from that soul, i.e. the highest Self. We hence also reject the Purvapakshin's contention that question and answer refer to the individual soul, that the veins called hita are the abode of deep sleep, and that the well-known clause as to the prana must be taken to mean that the aggregate of the organs becomes one in the individual soul called prâna. For the veins are the abode, not of deep sleep, but of dream, and, as we have shown above, Brahman only is the abode of deep sleep; and the text declares that the individual soul, together with all its ministering organs, becomes one with, and again proceeds from, Brahman only—which the text designates as Präna. -Moreover some, viz. the Vågasaneyins in this same colloquy of Balaki and Agâtasatru as recorded in their text, clearly distinguish from the vigñana-maya, i.e. the individual soul in the state of deep sleep, the highest Self which then is the abode of the individual soul. Where was then the person, consisting of intelligence, and from whence did he thus come back ?—When he was thus asleep, then the intelligent person, having through the intelligence of the senses absorbed within himself all intelligence, lies in the ether that is within the heart.' Now the word 'ether' is known to denote the highest Self; cf. the text 'there is within that the small ether' (Kh. Up. VIII, 1, 1). This shows us that the individual soul is mentioned in the Vågasaneyin passage to the end of setting forth what is different from it, viz. the pragña Self, į.e. the highest Brahman. The general conclusion therefore is that the Kaushitaki-text under discussion proposes as
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