Śaṅkaraon Brahma Sūtra 3.3.24

In the Rahasya-brfihma;/a of the Ta//<'fins and the Paiiigins (the A^//andogya) there is a vidya treating of man, in which man is fancifully identified with the sacrifice, the three periods of his life with the three libations, his hunger and so on, witli the diksha, &c. And other par- ticulars also are mentioned there, such as formulas of prayer, use of mantras and assimilation of the seicrifice so on. —A similar fanciful and man the Taittiriyakas exhibit, ‘ For him who knows thus the Self of the sacrifice is the sacrificcr. Faith is the wife of the sacrificcr,^ and so on (Taitt. Ar. X, 64),—The doubt here arises whether the particulars of the man-sacrifice given in the AV/andogya are to be inserted in the Taittiriyaka or not. Against the view of the purvapakshin that they are so to be inserted because in both places we have a purusha- yagusi, we maintain that they are not to be inserted because the characteristic.s of the purusha-ya^^??a of the A"/^andogas are not recognised in the Taittiriya-text. This the Sutra- kdra expresses by saying, ‘ As (the record of the followers of some Vakhas, viz. the Ta;/^/ins and Paiiigins, is) in the purusha-vidya, not such is the record of others,* viz. the Taittiriyakas. For the latter exhibit an identification of man with the sacrifice, in which the wife, the sacrificcr, the Veda, the vedi, the sacrificial grass, the post, the butter, the sacrificial animal, the priest, &c., are mentioned in succession ; none of which particulars are mentioned in the Khkndogydi, The use also to which the Taittirtyaka turns the three libations is different from the AV/andogya. And the few points in which the two texts agree, such as the iden- tification of the Avab/'Aha-ceremony with death, lose their significance side by side with the greater number of dis- similarities, and arc therefore not able to effect the recog- nition of the vidya.—Moreover the Taittiriyaka does not represent man as the sacrifice (as the AV/andogya does) for the two genitives (‘of him who thus knows’ and ‘of the sacrifice ’) are not co-ordinate, and the passage there- fore cannot be construed to mean, ‘ The knowing one who is the sacrifice, of him the Self is,’ &c. P'or it cannot be said that man is the sacrifice, in the literal sense of the word The two genitives are rather to be taken in that way, that one qualifies the other, ‘ The sacrifice of him who thus knows, of that sacrifice,’ &c. For the connexion of the sacrifice with man (which is expressed by the geni- tive, ‘ the sacrifice of him ’) is really and literally true and to take a passage in its literal meaning, if possible at all, is always preferable to having recourse to a secondary metaphorical meaning Moreover the words next follow- ing in the Taittiriyaka-passage, ‘the Self is the sacrificcr,’ declare that man (man’s Self) is the sacrificcr, and this again shows that man’s relation to the sacrifice is not that of co-ordination Moreover as the section beginning with ‘ Of him who thus knows ’ forms an anuvada of something previously established (and as such forms one vakya to which one sense only must be ascribed), wc must not bring about ‘ a split of the sentence ’ by interpreting it as * And therefore we are not warranted in taking the two genitives as co-ordinate, as otherwise they might be taken. ® Which latter would be the case if w'e should take the two genitives as co-ordinate and therefore expressing an imaginative identification of the man and the sacrifice. ® If man is the sacrificer he cannot be identified with the sacrifice ; he is rather the Lord of the sacrifice. ;; 222 YEdAnTA-sOtrAS. teaching in the first place that man is the sacrifice, and in the second place that the Self and the other beings enumerated are the sacrificer and so on. And as we see that the passage, ‘ Of him who thus knows,* &c., follows upon some instruction about the knowledge of the Self coupled with sawny^sa, we apprehend that the Taittiri- yaka-chapter is not an independent vidyd but merely supplementary to the instruction previously given. In agreement with this conclusion we observe that the Tait- tiriyaka promises only one result for both chapters, viz. the one stilted in the passage, ‘ He obtains the greatness of Brahman.’—On the other hand the text embodying the purusha-vidya in the iTyJandogya is an independent text for we sec that an independent result is attached to it, viz. an increase of length of life, ‘ He who knows this lives on to a hundred and sixteen years/ — Hence the particulars mentioned in the purusha-vidyd of another 5'dkha. such as formulas of prayer, mantras and so on, are not to be com- bined with the Taittiriya-text of the vidya.