The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja: Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48
Religion
The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja: Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48
Vedanta
The followers of the Atharva-veda, in the section containing the
question asked by Satyakâma, read as follows: 'He again who meditates
with this syllable Aum of three Mâtrâs on the highest Person, he comes
to light and to the sun. As a snake frees itself from its skin, so he
frees himself from evil. He is led up by the Sâman verses to the Brahma-
world; he sees the person dwelling in the castle who is higher than the
individual souls concreted with bodies and higher (than those)' (Pra. Up.
V, 2). Here the terms 'he meditates' and 'he sees' have the same sense,
'seeing' being the result of devout meditation; for according to the
principle expressed in the text (Ch. Up. III, 14) 'According as man's
thought is in this world,' what is reached by the devotee is the object
of meditation; and moreover the text exhibits the same object, viz. 'the
highest Person' in connexion with both verbs.
The doubt here presents itself whether the highest Person in this text
be the so-called four-faced Brahmâ, the Lord of the mundane egg who
represents the individual souls in their collective aspect, or the
supreme Person who is the Lord of all.--The Pûrvapakshin maintains the
former view. For, he argues, on the introductory question, 'He who here
among men should meditate until death on the syllable Om, what would he
obtain by it?' The text first declares that he who meditates on that
syllable as having one Mâtrâ, obtains the world of men; and next, that
he who meditates on it as having two Mâtrâs obtains the world of the
atmosphere. Hence the Brahma-world, which the text after that represents
as the object reached by him who meditates on Om as having three
syllables, must be the world of Brahmâ Katurmukha who is constituted by
the aggregate of the individual souls. What the soul having reached that
world sees, therefore is the same Brahmâ Katurmukha; and thus only the
attribute 'etasmâj' jîvaghanât parât param' is suitable; for the
collective soul, i. e. Brahmâ Katurmukha, residing in the Brahma-world
is higher (para) than the distributive or discrete soul (jîva) which is
concreted (ghanî-bhûta) with the body and sense-organs, and at the same
time is higher (para) than these. The highest Person mentioned in the
text, therefore, is Brahmâa Katurmukha; and the qualities mentioned
further on, such as absence of decay, &c., must be taken in such a way
as to agree with that Brahmâ.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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