Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 1.djvu/219

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VI PRAPÂTHAKA, 14 KHANDA, 1.
105

The son having looked for it, found it not, for, of course, it was melted.

2. The father said: 'Taste it from the surface of the water. How is it?'

The son replied: 'It is salt.'

'Taste it from the middle. How is it?'

The son replied: "It is salt.'

'Taste it from the bottom. How is it?'

The son replied: 'It is salt.'

The father said: 'Throw it away[1] and then wait on me.'

He did so; but salt exists for ever.

Then the father said: 'Here also, in this body, forsooth, you do not perceive the True (Sat), my son; but there indeed it is.

3. 'That which is the subtile essence, in it all that exists has its self. It is the True. It is the Self, and thou, O Svetaketu, art it.'

'Please, Sir, inform me still more,' said the son.

'Be it so, my child,' the father replied.


Fourteenth Khanda[2].

1. 'As one might lead a person with his eyes covered away from the Gandhâras[3], and leave him


  1. Read abhiprâsya, which is evidently intended by the commentary: abhiprâyasya parityagya. See B.R. Sanskrit Dictionary, s.v.
  2. The question here asked is: The salt, though no longer perceptible by means of sight or touch, could be discovered by taste. Then how can the Sat be discovered, although it is imperceptible by all the senses?
  3. The Gandhâras, but rarely mentioned in the Rig-veda and the Ait. Brâhmana, have left their name in Κάνδαροι and Candahar. The fact of their name being evidently quite familiar to the author of the Upanishad might be used to prove either its antiquity or its Northern origin.