The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja — Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 by Unknown
page 97 of 941 (10%)
page 97 of 941 (10%)
![]() | ![]() |
|
|
as thinker of (other) thinkers, as one of many' (Ka. Up. II, 5, 13);
'There are two unborn ones--one who knows, one who does not know--one strong, the other weak' (Svet. Up. I, 9); 'Let us know Him, the highest of Lords, the great Lord, the highest deity of deities, the master of masters, the highest above the god, the lord of the world, the adorable one' (Svet. Up. VI, 7); 'Of him there is known no effect (body) or instrument; no one is seen like unto him or better; his high power is revealed as manifold, forming his essential nature, as knowledge, strength, and action' (Svet. Up. VI, 8); 'That is the Self, free from sin, ageless, deathless, griefless, free from hunger and thirst, whose wishes are true, whose purposes are true' (Ch. Up. VIII, 1, 5). These and other texts declare that to Brahman, whose essential nature is knowledge, there belong many excellent qualities--among which that of being a knowing subject stands first, and that Brahman is free from all evil qualities. That the texts referring to Brahman as free from qualities, and those which speak of it as possessing qualities, have really one and the same object may be inferred from the last of the passages quoted above; the earlier part of which--'free from sin,' up to 'free from thirst'--denies of Brahman all evil qualities, while its latter part--'whose wishes are true,' and so on--asserts of its certain excellent qualities. As thus there is no contradiction between the two classes of texts, there is no reason whatever to assume that either of them has for its object something that is false.--With regard to the concluding passage of the Taittiriya-text, 'from whence all speech, together with the mind, turns away, unable to reach it [FOOTNOTE 82:1],' we point out that with the passage 'From terror of it the wind blows,' there begins a declaration of the qualities of Brahman, and that the next section 'one hundred times that human bliss,' &c., makes statements as to the relative bliss enjoyed by the different classes of embodied souls; the concluding passage 'He who knows the bliss of that Brahman |
|


