nowledge. But to assume that the faultless
/s/astra is not a means of right knowledge, would be contrary to reason.
And if the /s/astra, considered as a means of right knowledge, should
point out to a man desirous of release, but ignorant of the way to it, a
non-intelligent Self as the real Self, he would--comparable to the blind
man who had caught hold of the ox's tail[96]--cling to the view of that
being the Self, and thus never be able to reach the real Self different
from the false Self pointed out to him; hence he would be debarred from
what constitutes man's good, and would incur evil. We must therefore
conclude that, just as the /s/astra teaches the agnihotra and similar
performances in their true nature as means for those who are desirous of
the heavenly world, so the passage 'that is the Self, that art thou, O
/S/vetaketu,' teaches the Self in its true nature also. Only on that
condition release for him whose thoughts are true can be taught by means
of the simile in which the person to be released is compared to the man
grasping the heated axe (Ch. Up. VI, 16). For in the other case, if the
doctrine of the Sat constituting the Self had a secondary meaning only,
the cognition founded on the passage 'that art thou' would be of the
nature of a fanciful combination only[97], like the knowledge derived
from the passage, 'I am the hymn' (Ait. Ar. II, 1, 2, 6), and would lead
to a mere transitory reward; so that the simile quoted could not convey
the doctrine of release. Therefore the word 'Self' is applied to the
subtle Sat not in a merely figurative sense. In the case of the faithful
servant, on the other hand, the word 'Self' can--in such phrases as
'Bhadrasena is my Self'--be taken in a figurative sense, because the
difference between master and servant is well established by perception.
Moreover, to assume that, because words are sometimes seen to be used in
figurative senses, a figurative sense may be resorted to in the case of
those things also for which words (i.e. Vedic words) are the only means
of knowledge, is altogether indefensible; for an assumption of that
nature would lead to a general want of confidence. The assertion that
the word 'Self' may (primarily) signify what is non-intelligent as well
as what is intelligent, just as the word 'jyotis' signifies a certain
sacrifice as well as light, is inadmissible, because we have no right to
attribute to words a plurality of meanings. Hence (we rather assume
th