Śaṅkaraon Brahma Sūtra 3.3.34

The Atharva;dkas exhibit, with reference to the Self, the following mantra, ‘Two birds, inseparable friends, cling to the same tree. One of them eats the sweet fruit,, the other looks on without eating’ (Mu. Up. Ill, i, 1). The same mantra is found in the text of the iVeUuvataras (IV, 6). The Ka//^as again read, ‘ There are the two drinking their reward in the world of their own works, entered into the cave, dwelling on the highest summit. Those who know Brahman call them shade and light, like- wise those householders who perform the Tri//a/&iketa-sacri- — fice.’ The doubt here arises whether the two sections in- troduced by these mantras constitute one vidyil or two vidyas. Here the piirvapakshin maintains that we have to do with two separate vidyas, because the texts exhibit certain differences. For the mantra of the Mu;/r/aka and .Vvetd- jvatara Upanishads represents one bird as enjoying and the other as not enjoying ; while in the mantra of the Ka///as both are said to enjoy.—As thus the objects of knowledge differ in character, the vidyas themselves must be looked upon as separate. The vidyd is one To this we make the following reply. only because both mantras exhibit the character of the objects of knowledge as one and the same, viz. as defined — by the number two. But has not the purvapakshin shown — that there exists a certain difference of character ? By no means, we reply. Both texts intimate one and the same matter, viz. the Lord together with the individual soul. In the Mu7/^aka-text the clause, ‘ The other looks on without eating,’ intimates the highest Self which is raised above all desire ; the same highest Self forms also the subject of the complementary passage, ‘ But when he sees the other Lord contented.’ And the Ka//5a-text intimates the same highest Self which is raised above all desire ; only, as it is mentioned together with the enjoying individual soul, it is itself meta- phorically spoken of as enjoying ; just as we speak of the ‘ men with the umbrella/ although only one out of several carries an umbrella. For that in the Ka/Z/^a-text also the highest Self forms the general subject-matter we have to conclude from the preceding passage, ‘That which thou secst as neither this nor that ’ (I, 2, 14), and from the com- plementary passage referring to the same Self, ‘Which is a bridge for sacrificers, which is the highest imperishable Brahman ’ (I, 3, 2). All this has been explained at length — under I, 2, ii. As therefore there is one object of know- ledge only, the vidya also is one. Moreover, if we carefully examine the context of the three mantras quoted, we observe that they are concerned merely with the knowledge of the highest Self, and that they mention the individual soul not as a new object of instruction but merely to show its identity with the highest Self. And that, as far as the knowledge of the highest Self is concerned, the question as to the oneness or separateness of vidyas cannot be even raised, we have already shown above. The present Sutra therefore merely aims at a fuller discussion of the matter, the practical out- come of which is that any particulars stated in one of the texts only have to be supplied in the others also.