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in 24-27; so the difficulty must be resolved in a yet another way. |
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Usually a new text is introduced, each new text requires a refinement or narrowing or adjustment of or exception to the rules by which one had successfully defended the preceding siddhanta. Progress occurs in the amplification of one's ensemble of rules, and in the enhancement of one's skill in using them. A series of difficult texts is gradually masteredwe know what they mean, what to do with them, what else to doand so achieve a more refined and increasingly competent grasp of the rules needed for interpretation. |
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To know that "Brahman is the chief topic of the upanisads," or even that "the aim of the first pada is to show that the upanisads refer invariably to Brahman," is a necessary but merely first step to the comprehension of a pada. To understand the whole of (a portion of) the Text is to become accomplished in this skilled reading, right knowing and right performance of a reading of the Text. It would be difficult to exaggerate the importance of connection (samgati): the cohesion of the Text and the coherence of Advaita subsist in this textual relatedness, and not in the themes, nor even the referent(s), of Advaita knowledge. |
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b. Textured Reasoning (nyaya) |
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An allied form of textual knowledge is the reader's gradual internalization of the whole, such that its entire force is brought to bear on the reading of any part of it.
35 This is a wholeness no longer just that of structure or increased skill, but also of a comprehension of the totality. The skilled reader gradually appropriates the Text's wisdom as it appears in each reasoned, wise siddhanta; this achievement of wisdom makes possible a series of rereadings of the whole, each richer than the one preceding itnot just in knowledge about it, but in ever more refined judgments about the proper reading of each of its parts. |
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A key way in which this larger appropriation is signalled in the Text is the reuse of siddhantas elsewhere in the Text, in order to illuminate other purvapaksas and siddhantas. Thus, for example, in deciding in the course of UMS I.1.12-19 whether |
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