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This legitimation of some generalizations about Brahman is a cautious move beyond the precise warrant of any one upanisadic text; we thus recognize the constructive role of the skilled reader and theologian, who is able to make judgments based on the variety of texts he or she is familiar with, and not simply on the basis of the single text at hand. Advaita begins gradually to construct its discourse about Brahman. |
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Yet it retains a practical interpretive focus, insisting on the inadequacy of the words involved; the meditational focus and skepticism about words together deflect efforts to compose a generalized, and then a nonscriptural, discourse about Brahman. Yet while UMS III.3.11-13 neither presumes nor completes a systematic exposition of the nature of Brahman, the construction of that exposition has been inaugurated. |
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2. UMS 1.1.5-11: The Upanisads Do Have a Right Meaning |
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UMS I.1.5-11 completes the introduction to the UMS by giving a specific upanisadic foundation to the rules enunciated in UMS I.1.14, and at the same time introducing the task proper to the first adhyaya, harmonization (samanvaya): Brahman is the source of the world and object of salvific knowledge, and none of the competing interpretations, such as Samkhya's discovery in the upanisads of a material source for the world (pradhana), is intended by the texts. UMS I.1.12-I.4 is devoted largely to showing that contested upanisadic texts all agree with the siddhanta of UMS I.1.5-11. Scripture is coherent because it intends one salvific object. |
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The argument of UMS I.1.5-11 is encapsulated in I.1.5: |
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Because seeing is mentioned, what is not mentioned is to be excluded. |
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Since the upanisads explicitly refer to a cause which is able to see (which has foresight, intelligence), one cannot infer as the implied cause something which cannot see (is not intelligent), such as the Samkhyan material principle. The text at issue in the adhikarana is Chandogya 6.2.3-4, which narrates how the world came forth from the original being: |
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