वेदान्त पारिजात सौरभ (भगवद् निम्बार्काचार्य - द्वैताद्वैत वेदान्त ब्रह्मसूत्र भाष्य सटीक)

[sū. 3. 3. 19. ADH 6.] VEDĀNTA-KAUSTUBHA 611 We reply No, because the mention of several already-mentioned attributes serves the purpose of recognition ¹ Hence it is established that in both cases the vidyās are identical. Here ends the section entitled “In the same” (6). COMPARISON Baladeva This is sūtra 20 in his commentary. He takes this sūtra as forming an adhikaraṇa by itself, concerned with the problem whether the Lord is to be meditated on as a pure soul or as possessed of a body. The prima facie view is that He is to be meditated on as a pure soul only, for if one is to meditate on the form of the Lord, then he will have to meditate on His eye sometimes, on His ears sometimes and so on and as such no uniform and uninterrupted flow of the devotional sentiment, which alone is the means to salvation, will be possible. The answer is given in this sūtra. He reads “samāna” instead of “samāne”. Hence the sūtra. “Even (in the meditation on the form of the Lord, the sentiment is) the same thus, on account of the non-difference (of the Lord’s different limbs, such as eyes, and so on, with His very self)”. That is, just as a golden image is gold throughout and by looking at the different parts of the image, viz. the eyes and so on, one does not get different ideas, but only one idea, viz. that of gold, so the different parts of the Lord are identical with the Lord Himself and hence they do not give rise to different ideas, but to one idea of the Lord. Hence the meditation on the Lord as having a form does indeed lead to release ² ¹ I.e. in order that we may recognize the two vidyās to be identical, there must be mentioned some features common to both. Hence the repetition of certain attributes in two identical vidyās is not useless. ² G.B. 3.3.20, p. 145, Chap. 3.—“Evam api cakṣurādīnām vailakṣaṇyena bhāne’pi samāna eka-rasaḥ sa eva hiraṇya-pratimādi vat bhagavān vodhyaḥ.”