The Vedanta Sutras of Badarayana: Third Adhyâya. Third Pâda.: III, 3, 9

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9. And on account of the (omkâra) extending over the whole (Veda), (the view that the term udgîtha expresses a specialisation) is appropriate.

In the passage, 'Let a man meditate on the syllable Om (as) the udgîtha,' the two words 'omkâra' and 'udgîtha' are placed in co-ordination. 1 The question then arises

1; and we should moreover have to imagine some fruit for a meditation of that kind. 2 Nor can it be said that we need not imagine such a fruit, as scripture itself mentions it in the passage, 'He becomes indeed a fulfiller of desires' (I, 1, 7); for this passage indicates the fruit, not of the ideal superimposition of the udgîtha on the omkâra, but of the meditation in which the omkâra is viewed as the fulfilment of desires.--Against the hypothesis of an apavâda there likewise lies the objection that no fruit is to be seen. The cessation of wrong knowledge can certainly not be alleged as such; for we see no reason why the cessation of the idea that the omkâra is udgîtha and not omkâra or vice versâ should be beneficial to man. Sublation of the one idea by the other is moreover not even possible in our case; for to the omkâra the idea of the omkâra remains always attached, and so to the udgîtha the idea of the udgîtha. The passage, moreover, does not aim at teaching the true

1.--For all these reasons we declare that the appropriate view of the Khândogya-passage is to take the word 'udgîtha' as specialising the term 'omkâra 2.'

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Footnotes

196:1 Sâmânâdhikaranya, i.e. literally, 'the relation of abiding in a common substratum.'--The two words are shown to stand in that relation by their being exhibited in the same case.

198:1 i.e. in the present case we should have to assume that the word udgîtha means, by implication, the omkâra.--Recourse may be had to implied meanings only when the direct meaning is clearly impossible.

198:2 For a special adhyâsa-meditation must be attended with a special result.

199:1 We say, e.g. 'the cloth is burned,' even if only a part of the cloth is burned.

199:2 We therefore, according to, Saṅkara, have to render the passage