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devoid of all specification; but there Brahman alone, and not the five sheaths which might appear to specify it, was the intended object of meditation. Here (in 20-21), by contrast, it is Brahman as qualifiedas "inside the sun"which is the intended topic of meditation and hence of debate. |
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I.1.22 In 1.1.20-21, the presence of an indirect indication which could be attributed only to Brahman"he is above all evils" (Chandogya 1.6.7)enabled the Advaitin to decide that other indirect indications, which could refer to Brahman or to the individual self, should be consistently interpreted as referring to Brahman. Here, however, there is an explicit mention of the "ether" (akasa). Since what is mentioned explicitly takes precedence over what is mentioned implicitly, implicit indications can have no force in determining the topic of a passage when contrary explicit references are available. Therefore, this adhikarana does not replicate the preceding, and new arguments must be presented to fit the new situation.
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I.1.23 There are three reasons why this adhikarana follows the preceding: first, it simply extends the reasoning of the previous one, applying its principle to a new text; second, it simply takes up the next difficult section of the Chandogya text considered in I.1.22; third, in the previous adhikarana the fact that the beginning and end of the passage in question referred to the same objectBrahmanhelped determine that Brahman was the topic;34 but the current passage has no single clear topic for its beginning and end, and so its ambiguities have to be handled differently. |
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I.1.24 In the two previous adhikaranas, I.1.22 and I.1.23, indirect indications of Brahman proved decisive in the ascertainment of the meaning of a debated word; here, though there is no such indirect indication of Brahman, there is an indirect indication which points to the light of the sun as the object of meditation. |
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I.1.28 Here there is no decisive indirect indication as there was in 22 and 23, nor is there any determinative factor such as the relative pronoun which helped determine meaning |
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