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and how to use them properly, and thereafter to extend one's knowledge of the upanisads by reasoning properly. |
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UMS I.1.2 previews the judgment about the upanisads made in UMS I.1.5-11 and lies in deliberate tension with it: we find Brahman spoken of in the upanisads; we know Brahman from the upanisads; the Brahman we know is the Brahman spoken of in the upanisads. Everything we need to know is in the upanisadsand the upanisads inform us truly and adequately about the real world in which we all live. It might seem plausible, then, to reverse the emphasis and argue that the upanisads confirm and legitimate what we can know by other means, particularly inference. The purpose of Sankara's deliberately awkward reading of UMS I.1.2 is precisely to reserve to exegesis the advent of truth, foreclosing all competing avenues.
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The juxtaposition of textual definition and persistent incomprehensibility found in UMS I.1.2 enhances the importance of UMS I.1.5-11 as determinative of how the upanisads speak of Brahman, yet without overdetermining that expected knowledge. The ascertainment of the truth of Taittiriya 3, that Brahman is the world's source, does not make superfluous the rest of the upanisadic claims about Brahman, and does not give us a handy inference by which to replace the upanisads. Nevertheless, we do in the end know more than the words of the Text: we know the truth, we know Brahman. Accessible deep within the Text and only to the committed reader, it is still universally pertinent, the truth of their reality, available to all those who can and do learn to read properly. |
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4. UMS IV.3.14 and the Systematization of Advaita |
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Advaita articulates a truth which extends beyond its texts, a truth which is reasonable, world-encompassing, open to inquiry; yet this truth is firmly situated after textual knowledge, as available through an appropriation of the Text. As a final test of this thesis I call our attention to UMS IV.3.14 (and so to the entire adhikarana, UMS IV.3.7-14), an important instance in the Text of an extended discussion of Brahman in its provisional (apara) and higher (para) forms. Deussen was perhaps the first |
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