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ANUGITA
CHAPTER XVIII
Page1
The Brahmana said :
O modest one! I do not move about in this world in the way which, according to your own understanding, you have guessed. I 1 am a Brahmana, I am emancipated, I am a forester, and I likewise perform the duties of a householder, observing vows. I am not such, O beautiful one! as you see me with the eye. I pervade every single thing that is in this world. Whatever creatures there are in the world, movable or not moving, know me to be the destroyer of them as fire is of wood 2. Sovereignty over the whole world, and even over heaven; that, or else this knowledge; (of these two) knowledge is my only wealth 3. This 4 is the path of the Brahmanas, by which those who understand that 5 proceed, to households, or residence in forests, or, dwelling with preceptors, or among mendicants 6.
Footnotes :
1. The man who has achieved final emancipation has got that, in which the benefits to be derived from the course of life of a Brahmana, &c., are included (see p. 191 supra). Hence, says he, the doubt, on which your question is based as to what world you will go to by being joined to me, is wrong. See supra.
2. He is speaking here on the footing of the essential identity of everything. Cf. Gita.
3. The expression here is clumsy; the meaning is that he prefers knowledge to sovereignty, if the alternative is offered him.
4. Viz. knowledge.
5. I. e. the Brahman.
6. These are the four orders or Asramas.
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