Chapter 28

To this we make the following reply.--Bhûman can mean the highest Self only, not the vital air.--Why?--'On account of information being given about it, subsequent to bliss.' The word 'bliss' (samprasâda) means the state of deep sleep, as may be concluded, firstly, from the etymology of the word ('In it he, i.e. man, is altogether pleased--samprasîdati')--and, secondly, from the fact of samprasâda being mentioned in the B/ri/hadâra/n/yaka together with the state of dream and the waking state. And as in the state of deep sleep the vital air remains awake, the word 'samprasâda' is employed in the Sûtra to denote the vital air; so that the Sûtra means, 'on account of information being given about the bhûman, subsequently to (the information given about) the vital air.' If the bhûman were the vital air itself, it would be a strange proceeding to make statements about the bhûman in addition to the statements about the vital air. For in the preceding passages also we do not meet, for instance, with a statement about name subsequent to the previous statement about name (i.e. the text does not say 'name is more than name'), but after something has been said about name, a new statement is made about speech, which is something different from name (i.e. the text says, 'Speech is more than name'), and so on up to the statement about vital air, each subsequent statement referring to something other than the topic of the preceding one. We therefore conclude that the bhûman also, the statement about which follows on the statement about the vital air, is something other than the vital air. But--it may be objected--we meet here neither with a question, such as, 'Is there something more than vital air?' nor with an answer, such as, 'That and that is more than vital air.' How, then, can it be said that the information about the bhûman is given subsequently to the information about the vital air?--Moreover, we see that the circumstance of being an ativâdin, which is exclusively connected with the vital air, is referred to in the subsequent passage (viz. 'But in reality he is an ativâdin who makes a statement surpassing (the preceding statements) by means of the True'). There is thus no information additional to the information about the vital air.--To this objection we reply that it is impossible to maintain that the passage last quoted merely continues the discussion of the quality of being an ativâdin, as connected with the knowledge of the vital air; since the clause, 'He who makes a statement surpassing, &c. by means of the True,' states a specification.--But, the objector resumes, this very statement of a specification may be explained as referring to the vital air. If you ask how, we refer you to an analogous case. If somebody says, 'This Agnihotrin speaks the truth,' the meaning is not that the quality of being an Agnihotrin depends on speaking the truth; that quality rather depends on the (regular performance of the) agnihotra only, and speaking the truth is mentioned merely as a special attribute of that special Agnihotrin. So our passage also ('But in reality he is an ativâdin who makes a statement, &c. by means of the True') does not intimate that the quality of being an ativâdin depends on speaking the truth, but merely expresses that speaking the truth is a special attribute of him who knows the vital air; while the quality of being an ativâdin must be considered to depend on the knowledge of the vital air.--This objection we rebut by the remark that it involves an abandonment of the direct meaning of the sacred text. For from the text, as it stands, we understand that the quality of being an ativâdin depends on speaking the truth; the sense being: An ativâdin is he who is an ativâdin by means of the True. The passage does not in anyway contain a eulogisation of the knowledge of the vital air. It could be connected with the latter only on the ground of general subject-matter (prakara/n/a)[172]; which would involve an abandonment of the direct meaning of the text in favour of prakara/n/a[173].--Moreover, the particle but ('But in reality he is,' &c.), whose purport is to separate (what follows) from the subject-matter of what precedes, would not agree (with the prâ/n/a explanation). The following passage also, 'But we must desire to know the True' (VII, 16), which presupposes a new effort, shows that a new topic is going to be entered upon.--For these reasons we have to consider the statement about the ativâdin in the same light as we should consider the remark--made in a conversation which previously had turned on the praise of those who study one Veda--that he who studies the four Vedas is a great Brâhma/n/a; a remark which we should understand to be laudatory of persons different from those who study one Veda, i.e. of those who study all the four Vedas. Nor is there any reason to assume that a new topic can be introduced in the form of question and answer only; for that the matter propounded forms a new topic is sufficiently clear from the circumstance that no connexion can be established between it and the preceding topic. The succession of topics in the chapter under discussion is as follows: Nârada at first listens to the instruction which Sanatkumâra gives him about various matters, the last of which is Prâ/n/a, and then becomes silent. Thereupon Sanatkumâra explains to him spontaneously (without being asked) that the quality of being an ativâdin, if merely based on the knowledge of the vital air--which knowledge has for its object an unreal product,--is devoid of substance, and that he only is an ativâdin who is such by means of the True. By the term 'the True' there is meant the highest Brahman; for Brahman is the Real, and it is called the 'True' in another scriptural passage also, viz. Taitt. Up. II, 1, 'The True, knowledge, infinite is Brahman.' Nârada, thus enlightened, starts a new line of enquiry ('Might I, Sir, become an ativâdin by the True?') and Sanatkumâra then leads him, by a series of instrumental steps, beginning with understanding, up to the knowledge of bhûman. We therefrom conclude that the bhûman is that very True whose explanation had been promised in addition to the (knowledge of the) vital air. We thus see that the instruction about the bhûman is additional to the instruction about the vital air, and bhûman must therefore mean the highest Self, which is different from the vital air. With this interpretation the initial statement, according to which the enquiry into the Self forms the general subject-matter, agrees perfectly well. The assumption, on the other hand (made by the pûrvapakshin), that by the Self we have here to understand the vital air is indefensible. For, in the first place, Self-hood does not belong to the vital air in any non-figurative sense. In the second place, cessation of grief cannot take place apart from the knowledge of the highest Self; for, as another scriptural passage declares, 'There is no other path to go' (/S/vet. Up. VI, 15). Moreover, after we have read at the outset, 'Do, Sir, lead me over to the other side of grief' (Ch. Up. VII, 1, 3), we meet with the following concluding words (VII, 26, 2), 'To him, after his faults had been rubbed out, the venerable Sanatkumâra showed the other side of darkness.' The term 'darkness' here denotes Nescience, the cause of grief, and so on.--Moreover, if the instruction terminated with the vital air, it would not be said of the latter that it rests on something else. But the brâhma/n/a (Ch. Up. VII, 26, 1) does say, 'The vital air springs from the Self.' Nor can it be objected against this last argument that the concluding part of the chapter may refer to the highest Self, while, all the same, the bhûman (mentioned in an earlier part of the chapter) may be the vital air. For, from the passage (VII, 24, 1), ('Sir, in what does the bhûman rest? In its own greatness,' &c.), it appears that the bhûman forms the continuous topic up to the end of the chapter.--The quality of being the bhûman--which quality is plenitude--agrees, moreover, best with the highest Self, which is the cause of everything.

9. And on account of the agreement of the attributes (mentioned in the text).

The attributes, moreover, which the sacred text ascribes to the bhûman agree well with the highest Self. The passage, 'Where one sees nothing else, hears nothing else, understands nothing else, that is the bhûman,' gives us to understand that in the bhûman the ordinary activities of seeing and so on are absent; and that this is characteristic of the highest Self, we know from another scriptural passage, viz. 'But when the Self only is all this, how should he see another?' &c. (B/ri/. Up. IV, 5, 15). What is said about the absence of the activities of seeing and so on in the state of deep sleep (Pra. Up. IV, 2) is said with the intention of declaring the non-attachedness of the Self, not of describing the nature of the prâ/n/a; for the highest Self (not the vital air) is the topic of that passage. The bliss also of which Scripture speaks as connected with that state is mentioned only in order to show that bliss constitutes the nature of the Self. For Scripture says (B/ri/. Up. IV, 3, 32), 'This is his highest bliss. All other creatures live on a small portion of that bliss.'--The passage under discussion also ('The bhûman is bliss. There is no bliss in that which is little (limited). The bhûman only is bliss') by denying the reality of bliss on the part of whatever is perishable shows that Brahman only is bliss as bhûman, i.e. in its plenitude,--Again, the passage, 'The bhûman is immortality,' shows that the highest cause is meant; for the immortality of all effected things is a merely relative one, and another scriptural passage says that 'whatever is different from that (Brahman) is perishable' (B/ri/. Up. III, 4, 2).--Similarly, the qualities of being the True, and of resting in its own greatness, and of being omnipresent, and of being the Self of everything which the text mentions (as belonging to the bhûman) can belong to the highest Self only, not to anything else.--By all this it is proved that the bhûman is the highest Self.

10. The Imperishable (is Brahman) on account of (its) supporting (all things) up to ether.

We read (B/ri/. Up. III, 8, 7; 8). 'In what then is the ether woven, like warp and woof?--He said: O Gârgî, the Brâhma/n/as call this the akshara (the Imperishable). It is neither coarse nor fine,' and so on.--Here the doubt arises whether the word 'akshara' means 'syllable' or 'the highest Lord.'

The pûrvapakshin maintains that the word 'akshara' means 'syllable' merely, because it has, in such terms as akshara-samâmnâya, the meaning of 'syllable;' because we have no right to disregard the settled meaning of a word; and because another scriptural passage also ('The syllable Om is all this,' Ch. Up. II, 23, 4) declares a syllable, represented as the object of devotion, to be the Self of all.

To this we reply that the highest Self only is denoted by the word 'akshara.'--Why?--Because it (the akshara) is said to support the entire aggregate of effects, from earth up to ether. For the sacred text declares at first that the entire aggregate of effects beginning with earth and differentiated by threefold time is based on ether, in which it is 'woven like warp and woof;' leads then (by means of the question, 'In what then is the ether woven, like warp and woof?') over to the akshara, and, finally, concludes with the words, 'In that akshara then, O Gârgî, the ether is woven, like warp and woof.'--Now the attribute of supporting everything up to ether cannot be ascribed to any being but Brahman. The text (quoted from the Ch. Up.) says indeed that the syllable Om is all this, but that statement is to be understood as a mere glorification of the syllable Om considered as a means to obtain Brahman.--Therefore we take akshara to mean either 'the Imperishable' or 'that which pervades;' on the ground of either of which explanations it must be identified with the highest Brahman.

But--our opponent resumes--while we must admit that the above reasoning holds good so far that the circumstance of the akshara supporting all things up to ether is to be accepted as a proof of all effects depending on a cause, we point out that it may be employed by those also who declare the pradhâna to be the general cause. How then does the previous argumentation specially establish Brahman (to the exclusion of the pradhâna)?--The reply to this is given in the next Sûtra.

11. This (supporting can), on account of the command (attributed to the Imperishable, be the work of the highest Lord only).

The supporting of all things up to ether is the work of the highest Lord only.--Why?--On account of the command.--For the sacred text speaks of a command ('By the command of that akshara, O Gârgî, sun and moon stand apart!' III, 8, 9), and command can be the work of the highest Lord only, not of the non-intelligent pradhâna. For non-intelligent causes such as clay and the like are not capable of command, with reference to their effects, such as jars and the like.

12. And on account of (Scripture) separating (the akshara) from that whose nature is different (from Brahman).

Also on account of the reason stated in this Sûtra Brahman only is to be considered as the Imperishable, and the supporting of all things up to ether is to be looked upon as the work of Brahman only, not of anything else. The meaning of the Sûtra is as follows. Whatever things other than Brahman might possibly be thought to be denoted by the term 'akshara,' from the nature of all those things Scripture separates the akshara spoken of as the support of all things up to ether. The scriptural passage alluded to is III, 8, 11, 'That akshara, O Gârgî, is unseen but seeing, unheard but hearing, unperceived but perceiving, unknown but knowing.' Here the designation of being unseen, &c. agrees indeed with the pradhâna also, but not so the designation of seeing, &c., as the pradhâna is non-intelligent.--Nor can the word akshara denote the embodied soul with its limiting conditions, for the passage following on the one quoted declares that there is nothing different from the Self ('there is nothing that sees but it, nothing that hears but it, nothing that perceives but it, nothing that knows but it'); and, moreover, limiting conditions are expressly denied (of the akshara) in the passage, 'It is without eyes, without ears, without speech, without mind,' &c. (III, 8, 8). An embodied soul without limiting conditions does not exist[174].--It is therefore certain beyond doubt that the Imperishable is nothing else but the highest Brahman.

13. On account of his being designated as the object of sight (the highest Self is meant, and) the same (is meant in the passage speaking of the meditation on the highest person by means of the syllable Om).

(In Pra. Up. V, 2) the general topic of discussion is set forth in the words, 'O Satyakâma, the syllable Om is the highest and also the other Brahman; therefore he who knows it arrives by the same means at one of the two.' The text then goes on, 'Again, he who meditates with this syllable Om of three mâtrâs on the highest Person,' &c.--Here the doubt presents itself, whether the object of meditation referred to in the latter passage is the highest Brahman or the other Brahman; a doubt based on the former passage, according to which both are under discussion.

The pûrvapakshin maintains that the other, i.e. the lower Brahman, is referred to, because the text promises only a reward limited by a certain locality for him who knows it. For, as the highest Brahman is omnipresent, it would be inappropriate to assume that he who knows it obtains a fruit limited by a certain locality. The objection that, if the lower Brahman were understood, there would be no room for the qualification, 'the highest person,' is not valid, because the vital principal (prâ/n/a) may be called 'higher' with reference to the body[175].

To this we make the following reply: What is here taught as the object of meditation is the highest Brahman only.--Why?--On account of its being spoken of as the object of sight. For the person to be meditated upon is, in a complementary passage, spoken of as the object of the act of seeing, 'He sees the person dwelling in the castle (of the body; purusham puri/s/ayam), higher than that one who is of the shape of the individual soul, and who is himself higher (than the senses and their objects).' Now, of an act of meditation an unreal thing also can be the object, as, for instance, the merely imaginary object of a wish. But of the act of seeing, real things only are the objects, as we know from experience; we therefore conclude, that in the passage last quoted, the highest (only real) Self which corresponds to the mental act of complete intuition[176] is spoken of as the object of sight. This same highest Self we recognise in the passage under discussion as the object of meditation, in consequence of the term, 'the highest person.'--But--an objection will be raised--as the object of meditation we have the highest person, and as the object of sight the person higher than that one who is himself higher, &c.; how, then, are we to know that those two are identical?--The two passages, we reply, have in common the terms 'highest' (or 'higher,' para) and 'person.' And it must not by any means be supposed that the term jîvaghana[177] refers to that highest person which, considered as the object of meditation, had previously been introduced as the general topic. For the consequence of that supposition would be that that highest person which is the object of sight would be different from that highest person which is represented as the object of meditation. We rather have to explain the word jîvaghana as 'He whose shape[178] is characterised by the jîvas;' so that what is really meant by that term is that limited condition of the highest Self which is owing to its adjuncts, and manifests itself in the form of jîvas, i.e. individual souls; a condition analogous to the limitation of salt (in general) by means of the mass of a particular lump of salt. That limited condition of the Self may itself be called 'higher,' if viewed with regard to the senses and their objects.

Another (commentator) says that we have to understand by the word 'jîvaghana' the world of Brahman spoken of in the preceding sentence ('by the Sâman verses he is led up to the world of Brahman'), and again in the following sentence (v. 7), which may be called 'higher,' because it is higher than the other worlds. That world of Brahman may be called jîvaghana because all individual souls (jîva) with their organs of action may be viewed as comprised (sa@nghâta = ghana) within Hira/n/yagarbha, who is the Self of all organs, and dwells in the Brahma-world. We thus understand that he who is higher than that jîvaghana, i.e. the highest Self, which constitutes the object of sight, also constitutes the object of meditation. The qualification, moreover, expressed in the term 'the highest person' is in its place only if we understand the highest Self to be meant. For the name, 'the highest person,' can be given only to the highest Self, higher than which there is nothing. So another scriptural passage also says, 'Higher than the person there is nothing--this is the goal, the highest road.' Hence the sacred text, which at first distinguishes between the higher and the lower Brahman ('the syllable Om is the higher and the lower Brahman'), and afterwards speaks of the highest Person to be meditated upon by means of the syllable Om, gives us to understand that the highest Person is nothing else but the highest Brahman. That the highest Self constitutes the object of meditation, is moreover intimated by the passage declaring that release from evil is the fruit (of meditation), 'As a snake is freed from its skin, so is he freed from evil.'--With reference to the objection that a fruit confined to a certain place is not an appropriate reward for him who meditates on the highest Self, we finally remark that the objection is removed, if we understand the passage to refer to emancipation by degrees. He who meditates on the highest Self by means of the syllable Om, as consisting of three mâtrâs, obtains for his (first) reward the world of Brahman, and after that, gradually, complete intuition.

14. The small (ether) (is Brahman) on account of the subsequent (arguments).

We read (Ch. Up. VIII, 1, 1), 'There is this city of Brahman, and in it the palace, the small lotus, and in it that small ether. Now what exists within that small ether that is to be sought for, that is to be understood,' &c.--Here the doubt arises whether the small ether within the small lotus of the heart of which Scripture speaks, is the elemental ether, or the individual soul (vij/ñ/ânâtman), or the highest Self. This doubt is caused by the words 'ether' and 'city of Brahman.' For the word 'ether,' in the first place, is known to be used in the sense of elemental ether as well as of highest Brahman. Hence the doubt whether the small ether of the text be the elemental ether or the highest ether, i.e. Brahman. In explanation of the expression 'city of Brahman,' in the second place, it might be said either that the individual soul is here called Brahman and the body Brahman's city, or else that the city of Brahman means the city of the highest Brahman. Here (i.e. in consequence of this latter doubt) a further doubt arises as to the nature of the small ether, according as the individual soul or the highest Self is understood by the Lord of the city.

The pûrvapakshin maintains that by the small ether we have to understand the elemental ether, since the latter meaning is the conventional one of the word âkâ/s/a. The elemental ether is here called small with reference to its small abode (the heart).--In the passage, 'As large as this ether is, so large is that ether within the heart,' it is represented as constituting at the same time the two terms of a comparison, because it is possible to make a distinction between the outer and the inner ether[179]; and it is said that 'heaven and earth are contained within it,' because the whole ether, in so far as it is space, is one[180].--Or else, the pûrvapakshin continues, the 'small one' may be taken to mean the individual soul, on account of the term, 'the city of Brahman.' The body is here called the city of Brahman because it is the abode of the individual soul; for it is acquired by means of the actions of the soul. On this interpretation we must assume that the individual soul is here called Brahman metaphorically. The highest Brahman cannot be meant, because it is not connected with the body as its lord. The lord of the city, i.e. the soul, is represented as dwelling in one spot of the city (viz. the heart), just as a real king resides in one spot of his residence. Moreover, the mind (manas) constitutes the limiting adjunct of the individual soul, and the mind chiefly abides in the heart; hence the individual soul only can be spoken of as dwelling in the heart. Further, the individual soul only can be spoken of as small, since it is (elsewhere; /S/vet. Up. V, 8) compared in size to the point of a goad. That it is compared (in the passage under discussion) to the ether must be understood to intimate its non difference from Brahman.--Nor does the scriptural passage say that the 'small' one is to be sought for and to be understood, since in the clause, 'That which is within that,' &c., it is represented as a mere distinguishing attribute of something else[181].