|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The very possibility of such borrowing suggests that there is an extratextual aspect to Brahman: we can know and can take into account that Brahman is the object of multiple meditations. This awareness legitimately modifies our reading of the texts of various Vedic schools, without rendering that reading superfluous. The questions that need to be addressed in defense of this position include: how are texts to be used in conjunction with one another? how, by implication, are the meanings of texts related to the texts? how is Brahman, which is extratextual, to be known from texts while simultaneously influencing how we read those texts? UMS III.3 thus asks how texts mean, how they determine one another, and how they are their referents mutually determine one another. Its practical goal, however, remains the refinement of the set of rules by which one continues to engage in the act of "reading" Brahman in the Text,
42 yet as efficaciously and coherently as possible. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
UMS III.3 is structured by the logic of connection (samgati) examined above, by a series of refinements of the basic practice of coordination justified in UMS III.3.1 and 5. I summarize the three adhikaranas which demarcate the main lines of the pada:43 |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
III.3.11-13: Is there a principle by which some qualities attributed to Brahman in one text can be introduced during meditation on another textwhile at the same time not introducing all the qualities mentioned in the first text? Yes: qualities which delimit the nature of Brahman in itself must be distinguished from those which configure it for one or another meditation. The former, and not the latter, can be transferred from text to text.44 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
III.3.33: Is the denial of limitationsBrahman is not impure, not measurable, not perishablelikewise applicable by extension, without the meditator being burdened in every case with an unending list of denials of qualities which do not apply to Brahman? Here too the rule given in UMS III.3.11-13 applies: unless the negative qualities are purely contextual, the meditator (who must judge from past familiarity with text and meditation whether or not this is the case) can apply to them elsewhere; but there is no reason to introduce every conceivable negation everywhere. |
|
|
|
|
|